over the tragedy. It festers. She becomes moody and distant. She feels her husband is trying to put it all behind him. Of course, he is not. He tries to find some way top bring the case back before a judge. He fails. And so, in his desire to take vengeance, he accosts the murderer. He forces him, at gunpoint, to get into his car. The doctor shoots and kills his son's murderer, and buries him in the woods nears his friend's cabin. When he returns home, his wife asks if it is over. She gets out of bed as the doctor tries to go to sleep and resume a normal life. She asks if he wants some coffee. There the film ends, but one now wonders how this principled doctor and his wife will manage to live together in any sort of peace.
In thinking about the personal conflicts on this film, I have to ask myself several questions: Was the relationship between the doctor and his wife so stagnant that it was just a sham? Would they have continued to drift apart, even if their son had not been killed? We tend to take one another for granted the longer a marriage or relationship lasts. At the same time, as children grow, parents transfer love for one another to their children. Even as middle age makes them less likely to have physical pleasures, there is the pleasure of watching a son grow up, be clever and bright, ready to go to college and to establish a career in which both parents can be proud. Both doctor and teacher expected no less from the son. It was their only hope for maintaining their own personal lives. Then, the son is killed. There is no future left. Only one another. And now, the deep anger, the frustrations, begin. The teacher keeps her composure when she goes back to school to lead the choir. It is at home when things boil over. The smallest thing now irritates her. The seeming calm demeanor of her husband is reason for her to explode. So, to answer that question, there comes a time in a long relationship when boredom, unmet expe...