This movie is about the underlying, structural and dark grounds on which family perpetuates a human being and its potential, and the inevitability of destructive consequense when mixed with social aspects. It's really about the different personas and roles human beings have in this mysterious world. The portayal of incest is just one of many things you could put on screen here, but wow, does it make for unnerving and powerful viewing.
As a person you are formed out of whatever happens inside your family. Here, the mother had constantly been working because the dad had left and that left the siblings to learn and come to conclusions about everything together. It's the mixture of natural laws and societal flaws that has created their attraction aswell as the unbearable feelings of shame.
When the siblings commit their feelings towards each other, it is extremely powerful. What they together realize is that the love they share is the one constant in their lives. The actors are sensational and a factor of why is that they portray "normal" teenagers, people we all see everyday. What is so strong is that every human being has this passion that has been created from how they've grown up, whatever it may be, but socially what they do is completely off-limits. They try but inevitably can't escape from what formed them. They can't escape from themselves. If there ever was true love...
Now, the fact that they suffer so incredibly is something that shows the societal lack of sympathy for identity. They know they can't keep doing it but since it's been formed from when they were babies they're helpless to the fact that it's unchangeable. When it's just them together they begin to give up the illusion of the free will, and dare I say it, they are extremely content together. Controversially, a relationship between people who've shared each other during the years that's shaped them, creates an almost optimal way of living. There is inevitable things about us as humans that we cannot change. If we grow up like Vanja and Linus does, we end up just as they do. Now, Cue Mother.
If you started to warm to the fact of them being together I think that the film wanted you to. What they have together is in a clichéd way to put it, "Pure". Completely sheltered from "them". The mother is off to Greece for a week and completely isolated from society the siblings can love each other. When the mother comes back and sees them together in bed it all falls apart. Mother plays 2 roles here. Firstly, she has been more of a spectator of them growing up and she represents every other spectator and incidentally "them". The shame now overflows the siblings and everything that was silent and pure is now filled with whispers and screams. Mother gasps for air as she is so afraid "they" will find out and claims it's "not her fault". She has absolutely no understanding of herself so she can't make out why it could happen. This results in her almost shapeshifting into her most natural form, which is to try to be with her closest male suitor and shutting down every other rival. It makes for extremely unsettling viewing to see her lock Vanja in her room and try to seduce Linus.
I think this movie tries to tell us to first of all, take care of our family and children when they grow up. But ultimately what people need is to know themselves. The siblings both know that they're in love but wish that they weren't siblings, which is exactly why they are in love. They get so beat down by the mother who represent all the factors that aren't able to create understanding, like jealosy, ignorance, selfishness, uninspiration and conservative values. How are they ever going to be ok again after this? Their ability to understand is undermined by all of these societal issues. When it was just them two together, they learned, understood and experienced something that was unchangeable in both of them. Everything else was simply distraction. So much of what mankind has created has ended up getting rid of the reality of ourselves. Even if the siblings hadn't yet found a full understanding they had something that was truer than anything the mother and ultimately society stood for.
