What Were They Doing In The Water? **Spoilers**

It was a little confusing. I can't tell if he actually murdered her or she was supposed to have done it herself. Or if it had something to do with being religious and being baptized???

I thought it was symbolic of the washing away of that part of his life. I may not understand what baptism is about but I suppose that it could be a parallel symbolism though I see no reason to read a specifically religious message into it. I think it was more generally just a shedding of one phase of life. But that's the beauty of art. Sometimes what it means to you has more to do with you than with it. So I could be way off from the creator's intent.

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Never go in against a Fanboy, when death is on the line! Haha hahaha, haha HA...

I saw it as similar to what happened in Final Fantasy 7 with Aeris.

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I need to get my life back together and grow some dope.

This was my interpretation...

First we see Lars and Bianca on the bank, and Lars kisses Bianca sorrowfully and with great anguish as if he knows it will be their last kiss. I think at this point he has decided to euthanize her and is in effect saying goodbye, and dealing with the loss and conflict at the same time. Then we see him begin to stand up calmly but purposefully as if there is something he knows he has to do (drown her). The scene quickly cuts away as he rises, but after seeing the scene that followed, I believe that when he rises he immediately (off screen) picks up Bianca and heads into the water with her in a calm purposeful way.

The way that scene develops suggests to me that he is not "noticing she has become unconscious" and dragging her into the lake in attempt to revive her.. I would expect him to seem more panicked and hurried after kissing her if that were the case, and the earlier "final kiss" would make no sense in that case.

When his brother and sister-in-law come back from their walk and see Lars holding Bianca in the lake and crying, to me this occurred because Lars has now (to him) drowned Bianca and is crying out in grief over the loss now that she's actually gone, along with probably additional distress he feels for his part in it.

Does this make him a murderer? I suppose it depends on your own moral view as pertains to euthenasia. I didn't really see it as a murder. I saw it as two things.. hastening the inevitable to shorten Bianca's suffering (think Kevorkian), and also a way for Lars' subconscious to symbolically let go of his neurosis and move on to more "human" relationships. Perhaps by this stage, part of him had realized Bianca wasn't real, so the symbolic drowning may not have been tantamount to actual murder for him (clearly it wasn't considered such by any of the "normal" townspeople, his relatives included).

I thought it was a very well done sequence of scenes, intentionally leaving parts of it ambiguous to provoke the viewer into having to think, and possibly as some have suggested, to provide some moral wiggling room for those with different views to interpret the scene as they would want it and thus the movie would have more appeal to a broader audience.

I believe the water was symbolic of childbirth.
Lars mother died bringing him into the world, but he didnt connect with the world and other human beings, Bianca became the symbolic mother who bridged his connection to others, so in a sense it was lars rebirth in the water of the lake when Biance died after connecting him to other humans..