DVD. The Double Life of Véronique.

There appears to be some kind of intimidation factor when it comes to so-called art films on DVD. The enthusiasm of the youngsters is rash but can be rather charming, as neophytes avail themselves of non-Hollywood material through their favorite playback medium. You feel a sense of gratitude that "mature" stories and characters really can be seen on the screen, and that gratitude can nullify the finer critical edge. Take the Criterion Collection's release of the late Krzysztof Kie?lowski's The Double Life of Véronique (La Double Vie de Véronique), from 1991.

Surely there are greater films, such as White or Red in his Three Colors trilogy, not to mention some earlier films that form a part of his Decalogue. Véronique was one of those "web of life" films that began to appear in the 1990s (others in this genre include Sliding Doors, from 1998, and Lawless Heart from 2001, and in fact we aren't quite done with the genre if the Crash is any measure). The stolidly bifurcated Véronique is opaque, confusing and ambitious far beyond its achievement as it tells the parallel stories of two women (both played by Irène Jacob), one a musician in Poland, the other an aspiring singer in France, who never meet but whose lives mirror or mystically interact with each other.

Disappointing as Véronique might be to some viewers, however, one can't deny the intensity of Kie?lowski's palette. Kie?lowski was one of the last great directors in that high European super-serious Bergman/Antonioni mode, i.e., he was a beautiful cinematic craftsman ambitiously attempting to tell us who we are right now. Among living directors, only Michael Haneke and Theo Angelopoulos share a similar general style and critical renown. So grouse as one might, it's better than not to have another Kie?lowski film available on DVD.

But typical of the uncritical swooning is DVD Verdict's Rob Lineberger, whose enthusiastic review ends, "I've reviewed a lot of movies and been burned out on careworn themes and genres. The Double Life of Véronique made my spirit sit bolt upright. It flared my nostrils and widened my eyes. It made me ashamed that I have never before experienced a Kie?lowski film. Don't let my shame become yours. See this." Linebgerger, however, does go into detail about why the film had such an impact on him. "Slawomir Idziak's cinematography and Jacques Witta's editing are powerful reinforcements of Kie?lowski's themes. The use of yellow-green filters gives the film a unified air of mystery and spiritual warmth. It is hard to put my finger on why the filters have such a powerful effect, but they transform what we see subtly and thoroughly."

Jamie S Rich, one of the 10,000 reviewers at DVD Talk, is equally exultant, finding Véronique to be a "mysterious little movie. While it does tell a story in a semblance of conventional narrative, it's also an emotional jigsaw puzzle, a feat of storytelling agility that puts a lot of trust in its audience," adding that "it's never pretentiously obtuse. The master's touch that Krzysztof Kie?lowski gives to the film is to invoke our power of intuition. He is an expert at showing and not telling, but showing us in a way that makes us feel the events rather than intellectualize them." He concludes that the "movie digs into its viewer and takes root, and it will draw you back again and again. The more you watch it, the more you will like it, and Criterion's new two-disc set opens up the artistic endeavor to reach new levels of understanding. A bravura performance from beginning to end."

For Phillip Van at DVD Fanatic, The Double Life of Véronique "has a delicate, hazy atmosphere that revels in the sad and sensual. It's an artful labyrinthine mystery with the resonance and power of a well told ghost story, calling to mind the works of author Henry James and the fictional puzzles of Borges. The story is told not so much in conventional narrative form, but in hints and intimations." He concludes that "those who like Kie?lowski are attracted to his subtly uncanny ruminations on life and human connections as they pertain to the spirit. Those who don't like Kie?lowski often suggest that his work is more a totem of bourgeoisie ennui than true spiritualism. The Double Life of Véronique seems to avoid the critical pitfalls of his later work by presenting a tone and mood that are undeniably haunting and that compellingly inform the world he creates, leaving us with the idea that our own world is far more mysterious and wondrous than we had imagined." Van also took time out to praise Criterion's presentation. "As with most Criterion Collection DVDs, the packaging and layout for The Double Life of Véronique are a work of art in themselves. A special multi-folding box for the two-disc set depicts Irène Jacob's sleeping face, broken into two equal parts by the fold, suggesting the split lives of her characters. The images, fonts and box cardboard are delicately chosen. There is nothing here that Criterion didn't artfully select for the DVD release."

Leave it to the DVD Journal, the New Yorker of DVD review sites, to piss on the parade. Clarence Beaks begins his review promisingly, writing, "When the wonder goes out of the world, watch a Krzysztof Kie?lowski film and reconnect to all that is ecstatic and ineffable about human existence." But he quickly makes some qualifications, and notes that The Double Life of Véronique "is a mess of near spirituality, bizarre contrivances, and incomplete metaphor. On a literal level, Véronique is utter nonsense, but on a spiritual level, it is resoundingly, if inexplicably, true, standing apart from The Decalogue and Three Colors due to its lack of clear purpose," going on to say that there is "no simple accounting for what transpires in The Double Life of Véronique; at every turn, it frustrates attempts to arrive at an authoritative deconstruction of its events, symbols and, perhaps, post-Communist allegory." Beaks also gives a thumbnail sketch of the double-disc set's supplementary material, which include an alternative ending, a "dependably erudite" commentary track from Annette Insdorf, three short short docs by Kie?lowski plus a short film by Kazimierz Karabasz, the director's teacher, two documentary or video interviews with the director, and interviews with the cinematographer, composer and lead actress.

This is not the first DVD release of Véronique, however, as Gary W Tooze of DVD Beaver is always sure to know. Beginning by noting that the film is Kie?lowski's "international breakthrough" that remains "one of his most beloved films, a ravishing, mysterious rumination on identity, love, and human intuition," he goes on to weigh the Criterion transfer to its predecessors, concluding that it "appears sharper, slightly brighter and has less of the greenish/golden hue. I see no prominent signs of cropping. Subtitles are the same - generally the NTSC edition is best, but it's not overwhelming (depending on your system), but it does look superior. I will assume Criterion have minutely boosted the black levels to bring up the sharpness."

The Criterion set appears to resemble greatly the earlier R2 disc Artificial Eye, which Noel Megahey at DVD Times points out is itself a "port of MK2's recently released French 2-disc set." Back in his R2 review, Megahey noted that Véronique held "a unique position in Kie?lowski's career, straddling the director's early Polish work, where in films like Blind Chance, No End and his groundbreaking Dekalog series, he explored various themes of chance, fate, free will that draw people together and the social, moral and political circumstances that bind them together - and leading towards his later French work in the films of The Three Colours Trilogy, where he reworked many of those themes, refining his complex ideas and filmmaking techniques to a remarkable level of precision. In between those two periods of Kie?lowski's tragically brief filmmaking career lies La Double Vie de Véronique, and it sees the director at his most challenging, demonstrating the rigour and attention to detail that we would come to expect from his later films, setting up an intriguing dual situation that allows many of his favorite themes to be explored."

Posted by dwhudson at November 24, 2006 10:43 AM