Twenty-year-old Joseph and his sixteen-year-old sister Suzanne live in the merciless conditions of an intemperate foreign land with their widowed mother. Their mother attempts to exert a hold on her children by involving them in the family's run-down rice plantation. However the siblings seek liberation, and look for this in their romantic lives. Suzanne becomes involved with Michael and Joseph finds a love interest in Claude.

Director: René Clément