A quiet French peasant has spent three years as a corporal on the front lines in World War I, and one day he cannot take it anymore and goes AWOL, escaping into the Alps in the southeast of France. He first takes leave of his wife before heading into the mountains and manages to survive in the breathtaking, vast landscape while using all the knowledge and wiles under his command. Even though the area around him is fairly isolated, another deserter arrives on the scene -- but he cannot take the solitude and leaves. As the peasant diligently works at his own survival, the police from the region know he is hiding out somewhere within their jurisdiction, and so his future is anything but secure. This subdued, pacifist film strives for distance rather than emotional involvement, so as to present a pacifist cause as reasonably as possible, but as a consequence, the routine of the deserter's existence verges on a grinding boredom.
The harsh life of a troubled young man provides the basis of this grim French tragedy that begins when the fellow stops into a shop to buy a pack of the title cigarettes. There he meets a pretty shop girl with whom he falls in love and eventually marries. It was a foolish choice, for the two cannot get along and constantly fight. Things get worse when the husband resumes his criminal activities and gets caught. The two are about to divorce when the woman gets pregnant. The time comes for their baby to be born and while sitting in the waiting room, the husband reflects upon his past activities, which are revealed via flashback.
A cinematographic poem in the form of variations around the theme of Robinson, a utopian fable freely inspired by Daniel Defoe's novel, which speaks above all of solitude: the immense weakness of today's man in the face of loneliness is no longer that of the hero of the eighteenth century.
배우자를 잃은 파리 출신의 두 남녀가 새로운 감정적 교감을 시도하는 를루슈의 1966년 고전 로맨틱 드라마. 끌림과 죄책감, 그리고 기억의 교차가 분명하게 드러나는 수작으로 아누크 에메와 장루이 트랭티냥은 과거의 괴로움을 안은 채 조심스럽게 사랑을 시작하는 연인을 아름답게 연기한다. 주제음악으로 전세계 시네필들의 뇌리에 각인된 고전 중의 고전.
