Frequently surreal, and full of visual and verbal jokes, the intricate plot follows a group of protean characters around a crowded Paris during a Métro strike.

At a Paris railway terminus, Gabriel greets his sister Jeanne, who leaves her ten-year-old daughter Zazie with him and goes off with her latest lover.

Gabriel takes the child out to the taxi of his friend Charles, to Zazie's dismay: she wants to go on the Métro, but the workers are on strike.

An elegant man picks her up and takes her to the flea market, where he buys her a pair of jeans and treats her to a dish of mussels.

He pretends to be a plain-clothes policeman and escorts Zazie back to her uncle's apartment, where a surprised Gabriel submits to the fake cop's interrogation.

When the German girls descend on Gabriel and drag him onto their tour bus as their mascot, she finds a policeman to report this kidnapping.

The cop, called Trouscaillon and identical to the man who earlier accused Gabriel of pimping and illegal sex, immediately becomes the object of Mouaque's desire.

What starts with a couple slapping each other turns into a massive saloon brawl, which wrecks the place and brings on an army of cops.

In the morning, Albertine carries the sleeping child to the railway station, where her mother Jeanne regrets that she will have to find a better-performing lover.

[2] Klein also suggested making large posters like big advertisements that used abstract letters, reflecting some of the made-up words in Queneau's book.

[3] Bosley Crowther called it "an elaborate French exercise in cinematic Dadaism" and further stated, "The trouble (a gentle word for it!)

"[4] Decades after its release, Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote that it was "arguably Louis Malle's best work ... A rather sharp, albeit soulless, film, packed with ideas and glitter and certainly worth a look.

"[5] Richard Ayoade said that Zazie dans le Metro "isn't necessarily my favourite film, nor is it really 'in the canon' as a great piece of story construction.