Denise, an orphaned girl, moves to Paris where she hopes to find work at her uncle's store. But the glamorous department store 'Aux Bonheur des Dames' across the street crushes all the little businesses around. She finds a position there.
In a village on the banks of the Rhone river, Alban, a young farmer, is about to marry Margot. Monsieur Broc, a town hall employee, discovers his daughter is taken with Alban. When he rejects her, she collapses. Suddenly, the river rises and floods the village. One evening, Margot disapears… This peasant drama, adapted from a novel by André Corthis and shot during an actual flood of the Rhone, was Delluc’s last. The human madness is an echo to nature’s fury, magnified by moving images of a Provence submerged by water and mist.
The story of how the people of Paris cope with the strains and struggles of war, from the siege of the city by the Prussians during the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 to the invasion by the Germans in World War II.
