Nathalie Drivet

Henri Serin (Jean-Pierre Marielle), an umbrella salesman, leads a quiet life between his work, his family and his passion for painting. During his many business trips, Henri indulges in a few amorous escapades, which provide a welcome change from the tiresome daily routine his bigoted wife locks him into. One fine day, Henri decides to drop everything and live on love and fresh water. He ends up in Pont-Aven, where he meets Émile, a local painter imitating Gauguin, with whom he shares his drinking and other feminine attractions.

Charlie, a forty-something looking for a job, meets two twenty-something girls, Ghislaine and Josiane, who are similarly unemployed. All three decide to take to the road selling oilcloth to pay their way. The harmony reigns within the group until the arrival of Tony, a seller of miniature cathedrals.

Marie, who was orphaned as a young girl, has a case of arrested development that makes her act younger than her age. One day she stops to look in a store window displaying various ornate dolls. Claude, the affluent, eccentric store owner, sees her and becomes infatuated which leads to her and him meeting and deciding to go and take a look at Claude personal doll collection at his house. Marie, unaware of Claude's bizarre obsession with dolls, decides to marry him.

1974 saw the end of beans. The Halles were being destroyed. The extreme left was hesitating between the Molotof cocktail. The heirs of May '68 had not yet taken power, and desire was still in the streets. The characters seek an escape from their social alienation. We don't know whether they're living their desires or prisoners of hallucinations.

Two youngsters, a boy and girl barely into their teens, set up housekeeping together after dropping out of school. They have very little money and end up living in a rooming house. They spend their time playing, coming up with slogans, and writing them on available walls. Their relationship is mostly fraternal, so the boy doesn't understand the girl's jealousy when he begins receiving attention from an older woman. When the girl undertakes drastic measures, he begins to understand. This Canadian film is in French, with a French director.