excerpt from Ebert's review

Just read Ebert's original review for the film. Here's an excerpt where he ponders some of the questions and situations. His basic advice at the beginning of the review is for viewers to not attempt to explain EVERYTHING with a definite RIGHT answer, because there is likely not one.

"Sometimes I play a game in my life, which consists of returning to an exact place and time and duplicating an exact action.

Here I am again, I think, following my own footsteps. This cafe, on a rainy morning in Paris in the winter. The same waiter, the same order, the same book in my hand. And next year I will do this again.

The problem with these games is that they are locked in time. I can always repeat my action next year, but never last year. I cannot make an appointment in the past. Something like that game is what "The Double Life of Veronique" is about, with the addition that only the filmmaker, only Kieslowski, knows both of the women.

Are they the same woman? No. Why are they so similar? Perhaps because there are only so many differences that are possible.

Why does the second woman seem to feel a fleeting moment of pain when the first one dies? Kieslowski is not interested in the answers to such questions, because they would be meaningless speculations. But the possibility of such connections between lives is infinitely interesting. To think about them is to touch the mystery of consciousness.

When I do think I see myself at a distance, by the way, I never hurry to catch up. What if I were right? What would we say to each other?" "