In her first feature, Chantal Akerman plunges into the themes—desire, longing, intimacy, and estrangement—that she would continue to plumb throughout her career. Akerman herself plays the lead role in the tripartite film. The first scene depicts the character in the self-imposed exile of her room clearing out the furniture, thinking, writing, and eating sugar. In the next section she hitches a ride with a truck driver who confides in her. In the third episode she arrives at the apartment of her reluctant lover and eventually they go to bed, their lengthy embraces a fleeting respite from solitude. Kate MacKay