Le Double Vie De Veronique (The Double Life Of Veronique)

1991 film from the late master, Kieslowski. This is a endlessly complex, twisting, opaque, highly intelligent and deeply beautiful work.
At the start we follow Weronika, but are slowly taken further and further away from her. This mirrors an estrangement she feels in herself, her sense of her oneness only able to be realised through a surviving event. The doubleness of her life is accentuated right from the opening scene, and further we are involved in a deeply sensuous manner. Kieslowski's use of frames, glasses, distorting lights indicate how what we see is through one lens. It is also deeply beautiful, a beauty of the moving image rather than still frames.
When we have the scene at the concert, we have one of the great scenes of recent cinema. The doubling of the perspective, the deeply personal with the outside of oneself. With the music, which adds to an already extant emotion rather than swamping it, and Weronika's deep, deep breaths we are taken to the height of emotion, of power and of beauty.
The life of Veronique is also framed through distortions. Again we have a process of a moving away, though Kieslowski does not do this chronogically as he did in the first part; we are almost toyed with as Veronique is asked as to who she is, what speaks through her. The introduction of the male seems a clear reference to the filmmaker, to who controls and manipulates (this can be painful and difficult, as we have, thanks to Kieslowski's camerawork and narrative style, heavily identified with Veronique by this point) Veronique. We have even more questions of who is speaking wehn, and what is the difference. It was especially interesting to see this so soon after 'Double Take'.
The central performance is marvellous, the actress is intensely beautiful but is powerful enough to still be able to speak (when not silenced by mirrors and puppets) through this. The silences of this film are powerful, the images of Veronqiue's face and body both sensuous and not just sympathetic, but part of her. The yellow-wash of the print is one aspect of what we can straightforwardly say is a stunning looking film? Contrast, swappings, Kieslowski simply makes fine images, heightened by narratve and mis-en-scene mastery.
This is a deeply complex film, that frankly can only really be articulated by watching it. We felt glad to be around when such films are too.