Akerman's first feature is made up of three episodes, connected for the young protagonist (Akerman) as a process or journey, perhaps out of youth into adulthood, with all the discomfort that that implies. We find our heroine compulsively eating from a bag of brown sugar, writing and reading this aloud, rearranging furniture in her room and stripping it bare. She goes on the road and has an encounter with a young truck driver who regales her with stories of his life and its routine. Finally, she comes to the home of a woman she loves; there is a mood of estrangement but the women choose to make love rather than talk about it. Systematically avoiding any close shots, Akerman leaves us, like her protagonist, effectively distanced from the intensity of these experiences. For Akerman, silence speaks louder than dialogue; who can forget the dinners chez Jeanne Dielman? There, as in Je Tu Il Elle, conversation breaks in on a meditation on solitude only to underline the alienation.