Dreyer's last film is an elegant essay on a question asked as early as The Passion of Joan of Arc: can love survive in an imperfect world? The plot sets up a seemingly unbridgeable abyss between work and love, the parts of the conflict apportioned by sex: Gertrud rejects all of the men in her life, in her fanatic commitment to love. But not surprisingly, each character contains the dichotomy within him/herself, as well: Gustav (Gertrud's husband), Gabriel (her former lover), Erland (her current lover), and Axel (her friend) have turned to Gertrud as love. Her denial leaves them with a gaping hole where love should be. Of all Dreyer's films, perhaps Gertrud is the most boldly and rigorously visual: sharp-angled architecture, statues rising out of uncluttered grounds, figurines, lamps, tables, chairs and pictures meticulously placed in a room: nothing is haphazard, nothing is extra. All is surface-shiny surfaces and matte surfaces, black surfaces and white surfaces, a relentlessly front-on camera; and in a film about absences, mirrored surfaces, directing our "other eye" to what is not in the shot. And what are we to do with the statuesque posings, the long silences between the measured passion of the dialogue? Perhaps, taking our clue from the Platonic simplicity of Dreyer's shadow world, reflect.