YMMV / The Marriage of Maria Braun

• Alternate Character Interpretation: At the end of the film, Maria lights a cigarette from the stovetop, and leaves the gas on but blows out the flame, something which we know she knows is dangerous. She and Hermann have been arguing about how they each sacrificed everything for each other: she worked as a prostitute to make ends meet and he took the fall for her killing her GI lover. It's been speculated that she deliberately allows the apartment to blow up, knowing that they have ruined their own lives in the course of trying to survive.

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