A Parisian night on the Pont Neuf: a woman bereft attempts suicide. Fate intervenes as a young man, new to town, stops her. An ordinary love story begins. Yet through Robert Bresson, this well-worn tale is rewoven from the Fyodor Dostoyevsky original into a cinematic meditation on both romanticism and the ultimate subjectivity of love. Intimacy begun in a dramatic moment of life and death continues as Marthe and Jacques pursue dreams, each enmeshed in his or her own romantic reality. Bresson’s lean, austere style deeply etches their interlude: they are heard almost removed from context, and only what they see is seen.