Bruno Garcin

Adaptation of the famous novel, impassioned denunciation of the Guatemalan dictator Manuel Estrada Cabrera.

François Merlin, escritor de romances de espionagem, projeta seu alter ego, no personagem que ele criou: Bob Saint-Clair, um super espião, inteligente e carismático, cujos feitos heróicos e conquistas amorosas vem compensar sua vida medíocre e frustrada. Ficção e realidade se mesclam, pois François cria seus personagens baseando-se nas pessoas que o cercam. O grande vilão, o Coronel Karpoff é, na vida real, seu editor e a bela espiã Tatiana é Christine, uma estudante de sociologia, vizinha de François.

Jean-Joachim Goriot, a merchant who got rich during the Revolution, is obsessed with the love of his two daughters, whose social promotion he wants. He endows them richly, ruins himself to pay their debts, but Delphine and Anastasie do not return his affection and abandon him at the time of his death to run to a big ball.

Nobles try desperately to cling to the crumbling aristocracy in the days following World War I. The Count (Jean-Claude Brialy) and his Countess Mahe (Sylvia Fennec) delight in throwing lavish costume balls. The couple develops a friendship with a young boy who delights in the parties thrown by the noble couple. Love soon blooms between the Countess and the boy as she searches for something more than a string of endless parties and social affairs. The masquerades are an attempt to freeze time and hold on to the nostalgia of a bygone era. For fear of losing her, the Count allows the Countess to continue her love affair.