Reviewers have struggled with the lack of dialogue and the lavish use of symbolism, both of which force you to interpret the film as a visual experience. Most seem baffled, embarrassed or bored by the long wordless finale.
Consider what has happened to the principals: the husband Emil, after failing to drive into a train on a level crossing, has shot himself; the divorced wife Eva, after failing to throw herself under a train like Anna Karenina, has disappeared; but her lover, the surveyor Adam, still has his road to build.
So it's back to the job for him and his team, stripped to the waist under the summer sun. We get a celebration of physical work in the open: breaking ground with picks and drills, moving spoil, sawing timber. Even the respectably covered gypsy woman with her children is chipping stone. After an introverted and tragic story of thwarted passion among the rich, here are ordinary people doing an honest day's labour.
And the final shot of a happy and sexy Eva with a baby? If it's meant to be real, or just Adam's fantasy, we're left to guess. But isn't it a celebration of fulfilment and of new life?
Also, isn't the end a reprise of the old story in the book of Genesis? After their disobedience, Adam and Eve are both cursed. He must toil at the ground to make his living and sweat before he can eat. She will suffer the pangs of childbirth, but will still want to be with her man.
Consider what has happened to the principals: the husband Emil, after failing to drive into a train on a level crossing, has shot himself; the divorced wife Eva, after failing to throw herself under a train like Anna Karenina, has disappeared; but her lover, the surveyor Adam, still has his road to build.
So it's back to the job for him and his team, stripped to the waist under the summer sun. We get a celebration of physical work in the open: breaking ground with picks and drills, moving spoil, sawing timber. Even the respectably covered gypsy woman with her children is chipping stone. After an introverted and tragic story of thwarted passion among the rich, here are ordinary people doing an honest day's labour.
And the final shot of a happy and sexy Eva with a baby? If it's meant to be real, or just Adam's fantasy, we're left to guess. But isn't it a celebration of fulfilment and of new life?
Also, isn't the end a reprise of the old story in the book of Genesis? After their disobedience, Adam and Eve are both cursed. He must toil at the ground to make his living and sweat before he can eat. She will suffer the pangs of childbirth, but will still want to be with her man.