There, she is introduced by a nurse and made to answer a questionnaire which she views on a cinema screen, the words printed on a purple background.

Paulina is then sold by the clinic to a brothel, which is the only functioning institution and extant building in the town and which is presided over by Hortense, a former opera singer, and the old uncle.

Here Paulina is subjected to endless philosophizing by the uncle in a room containing a massive globe of the world, and is encouraged by Hortense to participate in a cocktail party, which she refuses.

Paulina meets up again with Nicholas in a ruined town, but is then seen looking for Hortense again, only to be driven off through the forest by a mysterious man.

With its experimental nature, Paulina s'en va disconcerted audiences and was not actually released until 1975, when it had a brief run in a movie theater alongside Téchiné's second film: French Provincial.