Moderato cantabile

Jeanne Moreau is with her son at a piano lesson. A fuss in the street alerts her that something is going on in the street. A woman has been killed in a nearby bar. She goes there and meets Jean-Paul Belmondo, who witnessed the event. They begin a brief affair.

Under the direction of Peter Brook we get one of Mlle Moreau's typically fine performances. The story, however, is very slight. We are to see the emptiness of her life, her indifferent husband, and his dull business associates at their haute-cuisine dinners, her lack of connection to anyone save her child. Her concern with the murder is an obvious issue, with its concerns about the evanescence of life. Yet that soon evaporates. Her inability to connect to another adult save through sex renders her as shallow as the dinner guests. The audience is held in suspense, hoping she will achieve something deeper.