LEtoile de mer

Synopsis

Almost all of the scenes in this film are shot either off a mirror like the final shot, or through diffused and textured glass.

After opening to the couple walking along a road, the scene cuts to a caption

Les dents des femmes sont des objets si charmants... (Womens teeth are such charming things...)

A short scene where the female alters her stocking.

... qu on ne devrait les voir qu en reve ou a linstant de lamour. (... that one ought to see them only in a dream or in the instant of love.)

From this point the couple retire to the upper bedroom of a house and the female undresses and retires, at which point the male bids her farewell.

Si belle! Cybele? (So beautiful! Cybele?)

The male leaves the house.

Nous sommes a jamais perdus dans le desert de leternebre. (We are forever lost in the desert of eternal darkness. Eternebre is a portmanteau of eternel (eternal) and tenebre (darkness))

The film cuts to a female selling newspapers in the street, this is Andre de la Riviere in drag.

Quelle est belle (How beautiful she is)

A man is shown purchasing a sea star in a jar, returning it home to examine further.

"Apres tout" ("After all")

The film then changes focus, following newspapers being blown in the wind while a man attempts to pick them up. Scenes from a railway journey appear briefly, tugboats docking at a wharfside followed by a panning city scape.

Si les fleurs etaient en verre (If the flowers were made of glass)

Followed by a montage of various rotating objects, including the sea star in a jar. A few still lifes appear, again featuring the sea star.

Belle, belle comme une fleur de verre (Beautiful, beautiful like a glass flower)
Belle comme une fleur de chair (Beautiful like a flower of flesh)
Il faut battre les morts quand ils sont froids. (One must strike the dead while they are cold. cf. Il faut battre le fer quand il est chaud - Strike while the iron is hot)

We rejoin the man as he ascends the staircase to the upper bedroom in the house, leaving the sea star at the foot of the stairs. The film cuts to the woman brandishing a large knife superimposed with the sea star.

Les murs de la Sante (The walls of the Sante)
Et si tu trouves sur cette terre une femme a lamour sincere... (And if you find on this earth a woman whose love is true...)
Belle comme une fleur de feu (Beautiful like a flower of fire)
Le soleil, un pied a letrier, niche un rossignol dans un voile de crepe. (The sun, one foot in the stirrup, nestles a nightingale in a mourning veil.)

We return to the female reclining in the bedroom.

Vous ne revez pas (You are not dreaming)

The film then reveals a short end to the characters love triangle.

Quelle etait belle (How beautiful she was)
Quelle est belle (How beautiful she is)

The female appears in a mirror with the word belle, which shatters. The affair is over, and the film brings to a close.

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