Many layers Visconti's work is always refined and involves deep psychology that goes far beyond the elaborate and complex scenery. Passion in all forms is the theme of this film - love, betrayal, jealousy, egoism, arrogance, instincts, conflict, motives, reciprocity, revenge. Visconti although maintaining (as is his style always) a distance and although confines emotional outbursts to the minimum, he manages to reach the end of the road without a glitch. Death (suicide) and (self) destruction is the order of things. It is precisely because he believes in a deeper (or higher for others) order that is able to maintain his composure throughout this tempest of passions along all the way. Something very few people in the cinema have accomplished so far.