La double vie de Véronique (1991)

Second viewing; first viewed on June 15, 1995.

English title: The Double Life of Véronique.

Weronika is a Polish woman who goes to Kraków to visit her sick aunt and over there finds a position as a lyrical singer. Her lookalike Véronique is a music teacher who lives in Paris and falls in love with a puppeteer and writer of children's books. The film deals consecutively with each of these two women.

I didn't get it on my first viewing; I may have gotten it now, albeit imperfectly. The main consideration is the difference in style between the two parts. This has been ascribed to a difference in temperament between the two protagonists; there must be a correlation indeed. The story of Weronika is intensely naturalistic and unsentimental, whereas that of Véronique is cerebral and kitsch. The relationship between the two may bear an analogy to the two-part nigtmare of Mulholland Drive. Yet the order here seems to have been reversed: Weronika seems much more real than Véronique; would it be too much of a stretch to construe the second story as Weronika's dying dream? A joke has a prudent aunt preparing her will, since the women in her family all have sudden deaths. Véronique profits from her alter ego's disastrous experience. But does she really?

Rating: 50 (up from 10)