De Vierde Man or The Fourth Man

At the beginning of the film, I wonder what is with the spiders and webs all about and at the end, my question was answered. It shows symbolism. 

The story started with a gay writer, Gerard Reve who seen a guy on a bookstore which he followed. I got curious and I assumed that he was probably a gay. Then he rode on a train and saw a woman with a baby which started his hallucinations.  He came out of town for a speech and there he met a nice and young lady, Christine.  He always seems to be hallucinating and this with the young lady it started to drive him crazy. Then he went with Christine who is very rich and works on a salon and he thought that he can find the man he followed on the train through her because Christine showed the picture of him. The story is really confusing and puzzling and as it goes on, my questions are also becoming tons because I have no idea what will happen next. 

Then Gerard gradually becoming aware of this lady had been married before three times and it bothers him if she has been divorced or did she kill them because he found tapes on how her husbands died in tragic. For me, this can also be can considered a Film noir because of the presence of femme fatale. 

As I read in some article the director Paul Verhoeven frequently claimed that he made this film, overdoing the symbolism and bible references intentionally. Lots of foreshadowing are also visible like Gerard Reve tips his glass to a statue of Virgin Mary as he takes tehe first drink of the day. Another is a woman peels an apple, then shapes peel into a halo over the boy's head.

This film is all handled in an excessive style that fills each scene with blood and sex. Gerard Reve is terrific as the intended fourth man but believed that he was saved by the woman who he first saw on the train and he considers her as Mama Mary. 

The ending was shocking and the said “fourth man” died in a very tragic way which traumatize Gerard and he thinks that it all happened because of  the nice young lady that he met.  It is highly-charged, beautifully crafted, heavily symbolic thriller is stunning. This stylish erotic thriller gained a cult following for its frank treatment of bisexuality, bizarre visuals, and an extremely good performance by Christine as a woman who may or may not have killed her three previous husbands.