The Middle of the World describes a love affair between Paul, a Swiss engineer running for political office, and Adriana, an Italian immigrant working as a waitress. Paul offers to leave his wife and marry Adriana; she walks out on him. Why? Tanner and cowriter Berger take the materials of a classic femme fatale tragedy and refashion them—as they should have been refashioned long before—into a subtly observed but invigorating tale of the growth of a woman’s consciousness. This cool, highly erotic, teasingly ambiguous film is one of the few convincing, truly modern treatises on love, one not divorced from the contexts of politics, class, and geography.