...from the surface of a divine mirror

"The trope of double-identity becomes a brilliant meditation on choices and alternative lives, on the presence of death which forces these choices on us, and on the terrible demands which art can make - if we choose to let it. Véronique's identity, her very existence, become vivid and deeply felt because the fable or mirage of its duality has allowed it to be questioned and examined. A single life should be sufficiently phenomenal; perhaps we would all fully appreciate the central astonishing fact of our own existence only if a cosmic twin were to be revealed before us, as if projected from the surface of a divine mirror. But Kieslowski suggests that the appearance of an uncanny double would be the occasion not of shock or horror, but ineffable sadness, a proof that we are not unique and not immortal." - Peter Bradshaw.