GRADE: A+

Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “The Double Life of Veronique” is a film not easily categorized, a haunting, mysterious and imaginative affair that rightfully brought the Polish director international acclaim; a film that remains one of cinema’s most beguiling and artistic motion pictures.

In all of Kieslowski’s work, imagery plays an important role—none of his films are saddled with narrative excess. As a filmmaker, he takes full advantage of the medium to create movies whose stories are told as much through cinematic expression as through words and linear storylines; those stories not always of a kind that carry a single interpretation.

That’s true of “The Double Life of Veronique,” a mystifying montage about two identical women seemingly leading independent lives in France and Poland, unaware of one another’s existence. Or are they? It’s the “or are they” that fuels the film’s anonymity. But it’s an anonymity not based on the vagaries of a thin plot, but Kieslowski’s unrivaled ability to capture the existential, making “The Double Life of Veronique” more like a waking dream than a puzzle to be concretely deciphered and solved.

Much of that mystery comes from the way in which the film is constructed and photographed. Most directors working today (and for many decades now) have little knowledge of how to make effective use of color stock without resorting to computer-generated effects, and more often than not their creations suffer because of it. But Kieslowski is in full command of the cinematic rainbow, using various color schemes, film stocks, lighting and mise en scène to create unique and captivating visuals, qualities in abundance in “The Double Life of Veronique.”

A film of uncompromising beauty and emotional insight, this feast for the eyes also manages to tell an intricate story about personal identity and the fear of isolation (among other things) as the narrative action switches seamlessly between Warsaw and Paris.

Watching these two lives play out (or is it one dual life?) we can’t help but wonder—as the characters do—what it’s all about. But the “what” is quickly replaced by a more immediate sense of association with the sensitive young women on screen as they struggle to navigate and understand their lives.

To say much more would risk spoiling the experience and give rise to the notion that “The Double Life of Veronique” is a clue-riddled character study waiting for the dots to be connected. Far from it, this fascinating rumination on time and space and our own place within it is best absorbed as one would approach the viewing of a painting of great measure.

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