The movie is Joe's self-loathing recollection of his sexual experience. The recollection is triggered by fishing hooks, cake forks, oil paintings, Bach songs, etc. from the Seligman's house, a solitary scholar. After each recollection, Joe and Seligman have a dialogue, covering trivial life, music, mathematics, and nature. , religion and other topics, seemingly unrelated, but reflect insights into sexual desires/relationships, maintaining logical coherence with the recollection section.
Sexual desire is the most primitive driving force, and it must be painful to be born with unrecognized sexual orientation. Such people are "sex outcasts" who will be ashamed of their own desires, and then deny and restrain their inherent sexual orientation. , if he had never indulged in lust, he would be great enough to be rewarded.
If the genders in the story are reversed, the man's indulgence will not be ashamed or burdened, and the abandonment of the family to explore the desire will eventually be forgiven.
The ending is ironic. After a long conversation, the old pedant who is regarded as a "friend" is still like all the men in Joe's life, no matter how serious, lofty, and moral they seem, in the end, they can't escape the allure of sex. Joe was just fortunate enough to avoid becoming the murderer who killed his ex-husband because he didn't understand that a semi-automatic pistol had to pull the bumper, but the gun ended up being aimed at the pedantic, and Joe also understood that he had to pull the bumper first.
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