Loosely based on Bizet's opera Carmen, the film was written by Anne-Marie Miéville and produced by Alain Sarde, and stars Maruschka Detmers and Jacques Bonnaffé.

The eccentric Jeannot (played by Godard) is living in a sanitarium where the doctor threatens to throw him out if he doesn't start to show signs of real illness.

In flashback, Carmen reveals to Joseph that the robbery was intended to fund a larger project, the kidnapping of "a big manufacturer" or his daughter, with a fake film directed by Uncle Jeannot meant to provide cover, a scheme that John Dillinger supposedly once perpetrated.

Uncle Jeannot is present to direct the film (apparently shot on video), along with the string quartet (performing in public at last) and eventually the police (who have followed Joseph).

In a stupor, Carmen asks the young hotel attendant what it is called when the innocents are on one side and the guilty on the other, when everything has been lost but you are still breathing and the sun is still rising.

Godard accepted, persuaded both by the perfectly fitting physical type to give life to the sensual and melancholy Carmen, and by the ease with which she faced, during an audition, a nude scene in the presence of the male protagonist.