What happens at the end?

I pick #2. He is sitting in his studio thinking about the day that has passed and his wife and how important to him she was and how his painting might not have been all that great. Yet if all that seems somewhat depressing, at the same time it's not that bad, either. All told, he has had a good life and he has done the best he could, and at times he has been truly happy.

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The final shot of me the movie seems like a latter of the first two choices you've put here. The tracking shot out the door Ladmiral's porch is one of his mind (as it as night at the time), but I don't see any sort of change happening. I can only imagine he's simply reflecting on all of his life's accomplishments and considering what he might have done had he experimented a bit more. I'd like to note the wonderful music played in this final scene as Ladmiral walked to his homestead was quite impressing on me. It perfectly sets up the reflective and melancholy ending.

He's been painting the couch. Throughout the movie, various characters (son, daughter, grandsons) interact with the couch - as part of life. At the end he also interacts with the couch and faces the blank canvas. All his life he's seen things from the perspective of the painter but now he desires to be the subject.

## In putting aside (and not doing it carefully) the sketch that was on the easel, putting up a blank canvas, turning the easel completely around, thoughtfully contemplating the blank canvas, and then regarding the pointillist outdoor scene, M. Ladmiral is indeed "reborn". That said, he won't experiment in a "new style", but rather pick up where he left off long ago, the style of his early painting that was submerged under all the scarves in the trunk in the attic.

It's so simple. In hearing the words of his daughter and contemplating them he's found the courage to start painting the way he wants to, so he removes the canvas he's been painting and turns the artist's easel around and added a blank canvas. The significance of turning it around is that he's not longer going to keep painting different corners of his atelier as his daughter complained of, but start painting beyond its walls and in the style he felt he should have been painting in without disappointing his wife that he hadn't found his style (since she's now deceased). In other words, his daughter's lust for life (and maybe even repeated examples of her selfishness) have taught him to follow his inspiration and even if it's one last canvas, he'll finally paint in the style he's drawn to, and with subject matter not inside those four walls of his atelier.

3. M.Ladmiral sees a new day.

Movement ends, intent continues;
Intent ends, spirit continues