Emotions are not discussed or described and they are hardly conveyed through gestures or mimicry. The figures' emotions are reflected much more strongly in their factual actions and not least in the very quiet, almost uniform passage of time. Monotony not in the sense of boredom, but as a form of ascetic concentration on elementary processes. Handke is consequently not interested in great psychological motives. He reports the woman's decision, but the reasons behind it must be developed in the viewer's mind.
Indications are only to be found later, such as during the separated couple's subsequent meetings.
With these words, the man involuntarily defines his own supposedly superior attitude. The real reasons are concealed in the images which are sometimes strung together seemingly unrelated and yet in some way mysteriously related. One night, a body noiselessly falls past Marianne's windows, descending into the depths. Just because Handke makes the Earth, people and objects appear skeletal, stripped of their familiar nearness and significance so that they seem cold and alien, this does not mean that they are seen with cold eyes, although his glance is certainly penetrating, searching and absolute.