In Messidor, Alain Tanner records the odyssey of two young women who take to the road and prove that, in a society in which social rigidity insures economic prosperity, wanderlust is an act of terrorism. Jeanne and Marie meet by chance while hitchhiking on their separate summer trips. Deciding to travel together, they set themselves a spirited challenge: to continue on even after their money runs out. But country hospitality was never meant to be extended to female nomads; after a violent encounter with a father-son rape team, they steal a gun on a self-protective impulse. With it, they commit minor crimes to get food and lodging. But the theft brings their escapade to the attention of the entire country as the nightly news chronicles the progress of the supposed terrorists. Paced more as thought than as action, Messidor is set against a two-fold vision of the Swiss landscape: beautiful, frameless horizontals are countered with aerial views of the open road that reveal a closed network. Clearly, Jeanne and Marie's criminal act is not the theft of a gun, but the original impulse that sends them out to a completely uncharted existence. "Tanner shot the film with no fixed script, all the more reason to admire its fluid but unlinear progressions, its inexorable feeling of deepening anxiety.... Every scene is marked by Tanner's tact and intelligence.... The girls are played with unerring truth by Clementine Amouroux and Catherine Retore, both making their film debut. They are as much responsible for the film's impact as is Tanner's technical expertise" (Variety).