Ethereal

Weronika seems too delicate for the world; She’s childlike and blissfully adrift. Irene Jacob gives off this quality. Kieslowski cast her because of her shyness, he found it endearing. The way the last segment recalled “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” was likely not accidental, because Weronika seems like a character in a musical. In fact, she does break out into song at inappropriate times.

But we see her first curled up in her bed at home, angelically bathed in gold light. We see her father’s hand reach down and touch her cheek. She gently touches the hand. Her father recalls Gepetto from Pinocchio, except he doesn’t have a puppet for a child, but a beautiful young woman who, despite her blissful confidence, feels unready for adulthood. She asks him directly: what do I really want, papa? He replies, I don’t know, probably quite a lot of things.

We are now on the train and we see the building that her father was painting, except it is distorted by the window of the train. Weronika gazes at it, then does something that feels particularly odd — she looks straight ahead, right into the camera, breaking the fourth wall, but also looking up slightly, as if in expectation of divine touch. She smiles, then looks down at a superball with stars inside.

She places this ball against the window and uses it to observe the passing landscape of houses and some people. We get the same type of upside down view that she had of the stars as a little girl, once more with stars. But we also see a reflection of Weronika in the window. This double again suggests comfort for her.

The next shot is of a gold tablecloth and tarot cards being placed on top. Weronika is laughing as her aunt begins to interrogate her about her love life, about the “blonde boy” she was with in the earlier scene. Weronika, after acknowledging that she has had sex with him, explains that the last time she was with him, they met in a downpour. She seems to be on the verge of explaining that she wanted to have sex with him right in the alley way during the deluge, but before she can get the words out, the doorbell rings.

Her aunt explains that a lawyer is dropping by, that the women in their family have a history of “dropping dead” while in perfect health, including Weronika’s mother and grandmother, so she thought it prudent to produce a will. Given that this is only a few years after the fall of communism in Poland, it’s interesting that she would have much of anything to pass on, perhaps just the house and items of sentimental value. We see the lawyer enter — a little person with a pony tail — and her aunt tells her to get dressed now that he has stepped inside the house.

We next see Weronika whistling The Internationale on the telephone, perhaps an ironic reminder of music classes from their youth, as she phones an old friend. This friend is going to an audition and asks Weronika to join her. We next see the two of them at the rehearsal, which seems to be nothing more than a bunch of raggedy looking middle aged men trying to sing in a chorus, with her friend playing the piano. But while the chorus is singing, Weronika can’t help herself but to sing along in a very high pitched countermelody.

This gets the attention of the choir director, who looks back at Weronika, who stops singing but gently winks at the choir director, then starts up again. The choir director seems exasperated at the men and says “thank you, see you again tomorrow.” She then chides Weronika’s friend Marta a bit for not playing the piano with enough energy. Then she turns to Weronika and praises her singing, asking her to come back for a try out for a musical performance.

We next see Weronika walking, alone, with a large portfolio of sheet music, presumably what she will be performing in the audition. For someone so adrift, Weronika seems to find luck quite easily, and she seems blissfully confident again. She bounces the superball twice, and when it hits a ceiling, golden dust sprinkles down on her smiling face.

But as she enters a public square in Krakow, public chaos ensues. There appears to be some kind of demonstration underway. At first, Weronika weaves through it while lost in her own world, smiling all along. There are marchers and people scurrying quickly. One rushes by Weronika and knocks the portfolio on the ground, scattering the papers. This was the distorted scene we saw in the film’s credits, except now in real time.

Weronika now seems deeply confused, but gets the papers back together and keeps moving through the square. Police sirens are blaring, chaos is all around her, but Weronika’s attention is drawn to a tour bus with many tourists hanging outside of it. Weronika notices a woman in the group that looks like her and her attention is focused on her. The group gets back on the bus and the bus circles the public square at least twice. As it circles, Veronique takes pictures of the demonstration outside. Weronika is transfixed by her.

Both women are wearing red gloves. Their hair is styled exactly the same. Weronika, who has taken so much comfort from double images of herself and has an intuitive belief that she is somewhere else in the world finally comes in touch with her other half.