Claude Nedjar

This loosely plotted coming-of-age tale follows the life of 15-year-old Laurent Chevalier as he stumbles his way over the burgeoning swell of adolescence in 1950s France. After having his first sexual experience with a prostitute and dodging the lips of a priest, Chevalier contracts a case of scarlet fever. When the fever leaves him with a heart murmur, Chevalier is placed in a sanatorium, along with his over-attentive and adulterous mother.

It all begins when Lucien Lachenay (André Dussollier), famous builder of the moving sidewalk for the 1900 Universal Exhibition, saves the life of the beautiful Alice Avellano (Kristin Scott Thomas), whom her husband, who has gone mad, was trying to strangle. Lucien Lachenay is himself threatened by a group of anarchists who have instructed a young worker, Alphonse (Benno Fürmann), to suppress him. Alphonse messes up the job, but Lucien, impressed by his inexhaustible energy and thirst for knowledge, agrees to be his mentor instead of handing him over to the police. In the years that follow, Lucien, Alphonse, Alice and the young and attractive Laure (Isabelle Carré) will face the game of rivalry, betrayal and reconciliation.