I just watched this movie for the first time tonight and was thrown off by the ending, when Jeanne suddenly turns sour on Paul (Marlon Brando) and kills him.
I’ve come up with a quick theory and don’t see anything like it in any of the reviews at IMDb or any of the first results at Google.
My theory is that nothing between their first sex scene and when Paul find her at the end, telling her “it ends, and then begins again.” That it is all (the scenes in the apartment between Brando and Maria Schneider) the grieving delusions of Brando. His fantasies resulting from the betrayal of his dead wife.
Thus, she knows him enough when he comes up to her at the end and she says “it’s over” meaning their one time tryst of passion was a mistake. She is getting married, she’s going to pretend it didn’t happen. But he persists, and she tries to coddle him, allowing him to take her for a few drinks. He treats her weird (completely different than in the fantasies), she is a bit freaked out; tries to mollify him with the dancing and eventually hopes a quick handjob will get rid of him long enough to get home; but he follows; she honestly has no idea who he is, and when he chases her into her apartment she is honestly panicked and reasonably kills him.
Is this reasonable? Obviously wrong? So obviously correct that nobody mentioned, or even hinted at it, in their reviews?
If this theory is good, then I am mostly happy with the movie; if it isn’t and it all happened, then I am mostly confused by the movie.
Brando is good, though.