Robert combines the nightmarish dream imagery from film noir with the offbeat and comic side of magic realism. He’s also influenced by Frida Kahlo’s The Suicide of Dorothy Hale. Like the Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel, Robert often takes a common expression and treats it literally to create a sense of strangeness, a disconnection between language and reality. In this case, the expression is “falling in love.” The image contrasts frenetic, out-of-control motion with two still figures, suggesting more than one level of reality. The woman has an affair with a married man; her feelings and behaviour, which are at times self-destructive, also impact the married couple who she comes between. The falling woman’s bent left arm is used to elbow her rival in the face and at the same time to affectionately cup her lover’s chin.