Tense music cranks up as pretty, vacant young Simon (Almeyer, also in Oliveira’s La Lettre) realizes everyone is keeping secrets from him. His beloved Ariane (Sylvie Testud of Lourdes) loves to sleep, tells him nothing of substance, changes her stories.

After she sings a courtyard duet with a neighbor, Simon goes out to solve the mystery of women, asks some women about their relationships with each other, takes everything they say literally, then comes home and confuses his girlfriend, deciding they should break up, then deciding they should stay together, until she swims out and disappears in the sea.

Impeccable looking movie. I immediately read the Christine Smallwood book afterwards, a very good analysis of Akerman and Proust tied together with the right amount of autobiography.

Simon with his grandma Françoise Bertin, a Resnais regular:

Smallwood:

The film constantly switches registers. There is a softcore shower scene; conversations that are screwball in their absurdity; an expressionist dream of dramatic shadows; a line of simpering sex workers straight out of Fellini; a talky, Rohmer-esque conversation about love over drinks in a bar.