What else are two single guys gonna watch on Valentine’s Day?
Note: For posterity, I want to put on my website an interpretation of the film I sent to a friend last year. Don’t read it if you prefer the film be left a mystery:
spoilers
Just to put it out there, one of my interpretations is that both the man and the woman are pursuing what they perceive as perfection (the nuclear family). He is trying to bring back together the family that already exists but is in tatters, and she’s trying to start one anew. He is missing the spark of life (i.e. the very platonic grasp he gives both his son and his wife) while she can’t stand the consistency/regularity of a “normal” familial existence. It ends up killing the two of them, leaving a sterile shell of a family, the doppelgängers. And then it destroys their son. During the woman’s monologue, she talks about the two sisters of faith and chance. These are the two things that the man and woman can’t come to accept. He can’t stand chance (the opposite of normality)—she can’t stand faith (the opposite of chaos).I’ve also seen some interpretations that are quite interesting, homosexual readings and things related to the Berlin Wall/German experience. Although it’s pretty easy to see a connection between the split in Germany and the split in the relationship.