Depardon's first fiction film explores the relationship between looking andloving, a theme that resonates for the traveler, the photo-obsessed, thefilmmaker and the film viewer. In a hotel in Djibouti, near Ethiopia, a Frenchphotojournalist invites a young woman, low on funds, to share his room,eventually to accompany him across desert terrain to Alexandria. "She"is played by Françoise Prenant (Depardon's film editor); "he" isDepardon's camera, only once briefly turned on himself. Incessantly watching hissubject, he elicits an indifference that excites him, and thus she joins a longline of screen femmes of which Sternberg's Dietrich is the most famous. But thegaze stops here: she will not be the captive of his emotional desert. Composed ofperfect shots-the Depardon still-life with movement-the film captures thedelusion of the "world traveler" whose universe is framed/circumscribedby the present exhilarating moment.