it the story of a married woman fall in love with another man . the married couple max von sydow and bibi andersson do live in fine rapport and their personality match well . both be quiet and contemplative and and very rational person and not liable to act spontaneous . the intruder elliott gould on the idyll which they embody together with their teenaged daughter be in contrast an impetuous man and uncompromising and overbearing and and torment by inner contradiction and compulsion . andersson tell him at one point that he hat himself . the two clandestine lover aren not appropriate for each other . they have difficulty to accept the other social behaviour and stance and do not like it to lie to their environment . but soon they can not live without each other anymore . the point of the film can not be to show how two contrary character complement each other and a andersson be even more happy with von sydow before and because it all tell in such a detached manner . the portrait of a love would like to involve the spectator to convey the joy and pain of it . instead the question why andersson turn away from von sydow toward gould seem intentionally perplexing . the dialogue and act of the lover be cerebral and cold and a if they be recite dazedly on a stage and astound themselves with their action and feeling . a if they be actuate on an impulse isolate from their personality . this impulse or drive be not eros and a especially at the beginning of their affaire sex be more a problem than a fulfilment to these two diffident lover . maybe love or the need to feel and give love be itself such a drive and an autonomous thing assert itself regardless of the circumstance and the character involve . the central metaphor of the film be a medieval wooden statue of mary and recently excavate after be bury for century like gould and andersson potential to be lover or man and woman . but with the disinterment of the mary there also come alive insect larva inside her and corrode her from within . before they meet gould attempt suicide and andersson be reduce to a wife . they flower in their new love and it destroy their life . civilization mean in many way the domestication of our impulse . therefore andersson realizes that she must not harm lastingly her family and gould hidden wife or sister . this be true . but gould be tell her that she be lie to herself by not elope with him and he right and too .