Health fascists too weak to face the inevitability of their own death: silly. Silly doctors, silly lawyers, silly ad men, silly media folk, councillors and planners Silly, silly columnists.Silliness is the root cause. Allied to its favourite tools of greed, stupidity and ambition, it is - all too often literally - lethal. But by the time I had reached this grand conclusion, the war correspondent had gone home and the pretty blonde woman from the books programme was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with her man over the interpretation of some Scottish war-ballad, and it was too late to say anything: not esprit d'escalier but esprit sur place.So instead I thought about the lobster, and how like him we are: unable to step back and assess things as they are, but seeing our progress in tiny stages, a degree at a time, until suddenly, one day, war breaks out, the economy collapses or we die Evil? Don't be silly !.

Deaf people's spokesmen who say that deafness isn't a disability: silly Sectarian loyalties: silly. He is Andre Jurieu (Roland Toutain), and he has just flown the Atlantic, alone, in 23 hours. Is he elated? No, he has never been so disappointed in his life, for he hoped to be met by a woman. But she is not there.6 Instead, he is met by Octave (Jean Renoir), his friend, a large, untidy, ebullient man of no means, yet an asset to his privileged social circle because of his wit, his good nature, his availability, and his usefulness as a connection and a messenger.7 The film cuts to the Marquis de la Chesnaye (Marcel Dalio), husband to the woman Jurieu wanted to see at the aerodrome.

Robert de la Chesnaye is an aristocrat, but he is also an outsider: he is Jewish Dalio normally played underworld figures. Robert is a muddle: he loves his wife, Christine (Nora Gregor), and his mistress, Genevieve (Mila Parely).8 Octave calls on Robert and Christine. His mission is to get them both to agree that Jurieu may be a guest at a forthcoming weekend in the country. Octave has known Christine since childhood when her father was an orchestral conductor in Vienna - Octave wanted to conduct, too, but lacked the talent or the determination. So now he is like the conductor on the train for his friends He persuades Christine.

He persuades Robert, in part because, joking, he offers to take Genevieve off his hands. Robert says he really loves and wants his wife, but he hates to be controlling. In affairs of the heart, people have to be free, without barriers or fences.9 Genevieve observes that "in society, love is the exchange of two fantasies, and the coming together of two epidermises". Not the least irony of the film is its delight in surfaces, skin, faces and eyes, and the deeper realisation that behind the eyes there are hopes, fears, ideas we never quite know. So this is a film about the clash of liberty and openness with solitude and fate. Does human interaction mend that clash, or make it worse?10 The story moves to the country, to a chateau in the Sologne area, in the Loire valley, east of Tours.