Louis Mahé (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a wealthy yet lonely tobacco plantation owner living on the island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, is awaiting the arrival of his bride-to-be, Julie Roussel (Catherine Deneuve), whom he has never met, having become acquainted through newspaper personals ads. The woman who gets off the boat, however, is noticeably more glamourous than the woman in the picture he received, which is the first of many surprises, mysteries, twists, and turns in Truffaut’s sumptuous, emotionally complex tale of betrayal, revenge, and erotic obsession.

Notes by David O Mahony

This film screens as part of the François Truffaut season, May 7th to 31st.