Nathalie Sarraute

On January 31, 1857, the French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821-80) took his place in the dock for contempt of public morality and religion. The accused, the real one, is, through him, Emma Bovary, heroine with a thousand faces and a thousand desires, guilty without doubt of an unforgivable desire to live.

Two childhood friends who have not seen each other for a long time decide to meet again. They talk and look for what could have caused their estrangement: words pronounced in a certain way, an intonation etc. Very quickly, an argument begins and turns into a settlement of accounts.

A short by Agnés Varda that includes excerpts from an interview on the France Culture radio show “La nuit sur un plateau,” hosted by Alain Veinstein, with Varda and with writer Nathalie Sarraute, whose writings inspired Varda's film 'Sans toi ni loi' (Vagabond) and to whom Varda dedicated that film.