Weronika (W) of Poland and Veronique (V) of France seem to begin life with identical natures, but develop into extreme opposites: W becomes strictly spiritual in her personality and view of life, attending to the inner and the private; and V becomes strictly material, attending to the outer and the social. At first I saw the same connections I thought the girls see; but later I interpreted events differently from how I think they do. I'll use a few scenes as examples.
At her father's place W wakes in a fright with a vague sense that she's not alone in the world, as if some spirit visits her. Later when she sights V in the square, she seems to have an other-worldly experience, as if this other girl is connected to that spirit. I assumed the same connection; but on watching the movie again, I realized that I had barely noticed something obvious in that scene: W is in imminent physical danger of being run over by vehicles and being knocked on the head or arrested by riot police, while V is physically safe and sound on her bus. To have an inner experience on seeing one's double is fine; but at the same time, the sight of her double being safe and sound should encourage W to want to protect her own body and to get out of the square. Instead W reacts in her usual private way, standing in almost a trance as behind her the riot police prepare to move. Run W, run!! As for that other spirit, it is W's experience in reacting to her chest pains, for which she never seeks medical treatment. But she carefully defends her inner life as she prepares for her concert and tries to avoid her boyfriend Antek. He seems to be of good character, but any love affair can stress the spirit.
Beginning with her first scene as a young woman, V vaguely senses some sort of loss in her life. Later the parallel to the scene in the square happens in the hotel room. V vaguely tells the puppeteer Fabbri (F) that she's always sensed there was someone else, and she's always known what to do. When F asks V to tell everything about herself, she promptly empties the contents of her purse onto the bed, then smiles sweetly as he goes through them. When V sees the photo of W that has been in her purse for a long time, V seems quickly to connect the photo with that someone else who has always helped her know what to do, and to connect her sense of loss with the assumed death of that person. I assumed the same connections myself. But after watching again later I paid more attention to some aspects of this scene: we can take the contents of her purse as her private inner self, what little she has of one, which she so willingly dumps onto the bed, and which F goes through in a mocking manner, for example, making her crystal ball disappear - much as in an earlier scene he drives off with the angel-spirit on the side of his van. V's private life is under stress as it always is with a lover, even one of good character, which F lacks. To grieve at the assumed death of someone is fine; but the sight of the photo of her double from inside her own purse should encourage V to look within and to take care of her private self. Instead she reacts in her usual material way, imagining a dead body somewhere, and allowing F to enter her with the sort of mechanical sex one sees in bad pornography. Dig in, V, dig in!! As for the loss V senses, it is her experience in reacting to the withering of her own private life as she glides superficially and mechanically through the motions of her social life. As for her always knowing what to do, it is due to her own keen attention to the outer world and its social conventions - attention that W clearly lacks, though she tries to be kind to people. In another scene we see that V has a heart condition as does W; but of course V immediately gets medical treatment for it, as we next see her coming up the stairs of a hospital.
(BTW some have supposed that F has mysterious insight into some connection between W and V; but he could base his novel on nothing more than what V does and tells him in the hotel room.)
W flourishes spiritually while paying the obvious price for never getting medical help for her heart condition. V flourishes materially and socially, but in the end she seems purely mechanical in going through all the right motions: she moves the puppet of herself while F controls her; she drives her car to dad's place; she operates its power window to reach to the tree; then she runs like a puppet to dad, who has been working wood with his new sophisticated tool. Each girl succeeds in her own way, but also pays a heavy price for being over-specialized.
The many parallels between W and V serve as artistic device to compare and contrast them. But connections between W and V, other than each sighting the other briefly, are not required in this interpretation. For each of the girls that sighting is an awful tease, since she cannot realize how easily the other girl can deal with the current situation, in which she is so unaware and helpless herself. Here is a pair of stories: the first is a slight revision that lets each girl survive, and the second brings them together.
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