As we’ll see in this segment, Weronika and Veronique are not exactly alike. But they do share very warm, loving relationships with their fathers, and in this scene, Veronique drives home to see her dad. He seems to live in a very lovely cottage in the French countryside. We first see Veronique staring out the window at a tree, contorting her limbs to resemble it.

Kieslowski never gives us the kind of direct metaphor of a tree like Tolstoy did in “War and Peace,” but from the tree’s three appearances in the film, it seems to be a symbol of her departed mother. Veronique’s contortions look a bit like her hugging herself and it’s easy to draw the conclusion from how the shot is framed that she wishes to be embraced by it. She has a serene smile on her face as her father enters the room, holding some gadget in his hand and explaiining that he found some milling instrument.

Her dad seems very satisfied by this, but Veronique changes the subject immediate and declares that she is in love. Her father asks if he knows him and Veronique declares “no, and neither do I …” Her father has a plesantly amused look on his face, saying that he doesn’t understand … but from the little we know about both Weronika and Veronique, I doubt it was the first time he was presented with such a puzzle from his lone child. Veronique says she’ll explain her feelings as soon as she figures them out.

She then explains how she recently had the sensation of being alone, of mourning something lost. She compares it to how her father must have felt when her mother died. He replied “but I really lost something,” and then explained that he had to take care of her and hold her hand. It’s a very adorable relationship and Kieslowski excels at this type.

This brings me to an interesting contrast between Weronika and Veronique. Weronika seemingly floated through life. She asked her father in a similar scene what she wants, and the question seemed sincere. Weronika, in her short life, seemed to fall into circumstances rather than seek anything. She happened upon a young man who loved her without any emotional investment on her part. She gets a lead singing role without any preparation or training. She’s so blissfully unaware of life’s challenges that she doesn’t even take a heart attack as a sign to pay attention to her health. In short, Weronika had no conflict in her life, no challenges, and therefore was a character Kieslowski had to dispose. There wasn’t enough in her to sustain our attention for a full movie.

But Veronique is more interesting. She feels her soul twin’s absence, she takes direction from omens, and then she chooses to fall in love at great personal risk. She is Weronika in an evolved form, learning from her mistakes and embracing life, even amid her caution.

But the next scene features Veronique in an extremely puzzling light. She is visiting two friends (on the drive there, she passes a cemetery that, I assume, holds her deceased mother.) At her friends’ house, two women are engaged in a passionate discussion about how the partner of one of the women was cheating, except she had no proof. So she asked her friend to lie for her in court, pretending she had a long-term affair with him. Such are the horrors of nations with strict divorce laws.

The friend, while sympathetic, says that she gave it some thought, but can’t do it. But then, Veronique volunteers that she will do it. It’s very odd, and seemingly out of character, for Veronique to do something so deceptive. Kieslowski, apparently, planned this subplot to be a much more important part of the plot, but decided in the editing room to cut several later scenes. He decided to keep this one in the movie because he didn’t want the audience to believe Veronique was too good to be true, she needed some kind of mystery and darkness in her.

In accepting the task, she tells her friend that she will need to know more about him, to know things a woman who would be a mistress might know. And perhaps this is the answer to why she said yes, that it was an acting gig of sorts. She wanted to experience having an affair without actually having it.

Or perhaps Veronique just wants to deepen her understanding of what it feels like to be in love, because this is apparently a first for her. The scene ends with her walking on a gorgeous Parisian cobblestone street, alone, her face bathed in sunlight.