A young French man and an older English woman spend one night together on a ship.

Desire for a subject that functions like a brief fling with no future as such, yet embellished by that very fact. Because something fleeting and futureless is not necessarrily pathetic or trivial. A brief crossing, perhaps an initiatory trip. Filming a guy's "first time", filming him like a girl. Gut level skin deep... Nostalgia for vast ocean liners, for places "beyond the law" where you can venture outside of life, safe within an interlude. Describing a passion while respecting classical tragedy's unity of time and place, setting the stage for the eternal play of Masculine/Feminine. A hot-blooded Latin temperatment versus an apparently cool English one. A ship - one night - Sudden intimacy between an Englishwoman whose complexion is frosted by bitterness and a teenager whose gaze glows like ardent coals.—Catherine Breillat