Our civilization is moving towards its end, and fast - this is one possible message of Bresson's film.

Charles, a sensitive young man, wanders about in Paris, lost and desperate: there is no solution for his sorrows, since they are the sorrows of the world. The solutions that are being offered by society-revolution, religion, psycho analysis, drugs-have lost their value, and only with a small group of friends, especially with two girls, Alberte and Edwige, does Charles find some comfort. However, his despair is too deep, and the destruction of the world is omnipresent in the films he watches, in the books he reads, in everything he is confronted with. So in the end, he finds his own solution.