The film is a grim, melancholic portrait of a young man searching and failing to find meaning in his life.

[1] Pierre, an idealistic twenty-year-old man, leaves his home in a remote district of the Pyrenees to travel to Paris, hoping to break away from his restrictive provincial life.

Arriving in the French capital, he turns to the only person he knows in the city, Evelyne, a middle aged nurse, whom he had briefly met when working as a stretcher-bearer at Lourdes.

The cellist, Dimitri, is Said's lover, and the intellectual television personality, Romain, is fascinated by Pierre but insists his interest is platonic.

They make love, but their liaison is discovered by her pimp, who with his gang beats up and rapes Pierre, forcing Ingrid to watch.

Pierre leaves Paris and joins the paratroops; he voices to an interviewing officer a desire for revenge, and also for the "leap into the void" involved in parachuting at night.

On release from his service, and about to leave once again for Paris and an open future, Pierre stops off at the beach, takes his clothes off and wanders into the sea.

The film's fragmented narrative structure and uneven rhythm added to the sense of insecurity experienced by the central character.

At the same time, the moody photography – particularly the intense nocturnal scenes – lend an atmosphere of cruel oppression and dark poetry, recurring motifs in Téchiné's appealing style of cinema.