La double vie de Véronique

"I was here and somewhere else at the same time," the French Véronique tells her lover, the manipulative puppeteer Alexandre. Though she can't explain it, she has a vague feeling that someone else is also controlling her life, a stranger and at the same time a kindred soul. Véronique had recently visited Poland, and while in Kraków she had taken pictures of a protest, unwittingly also photographing the Polish Weronika – a young woman who looks exactly like her. Later, when Alexandre is looking at the photos of her Polish trip, he notices what he thinks is Véronique in one of the pictures, but it is someone else. A confusing discovery.

To what extent can someone determine their own life? Or are there forces pulling the strings, like a puppeteer? Kieślowski raises this metaphysical question in this beautiful, award-winning drama, the first film he produced (partly) outside Poland. Irène Jacob plays both Véronique and Weronika.