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Classic overview

Jean, the lead character in this psychological journey is torn by a search for his lost childhood, the overwhelming need to love a woman of his dreams (someone he has invented), and a struggle with his latent bisexuality. Jean finds some photos inside an automatic photo station that look like his mother who died soon after he was born. He starts to fantasize about the woman, giving her a name and identity and waiting for her to appear. During this time, he meets Carole and has an affair with her, all the while pretending he has this other relationship with the woman in the photo. Significantly, the couple who introduce him to Carole is childless, and they eventually split up - perhaps a comment on the importance of childhood to the adult world. In the end, Carole discovers that Jean's "other woman" has no real existence, causing a crisis that finds a symbolic expression as the last scenes close on the story.