The Ghost Valley

Paul is a director. He cannot write the screenplay for his new film. He sits down at the desk but the work does not move. Auditions follow one after another. The actresses who come are all alike. None of them breaks the block. Then a man called Jean turns up. Jean is a freshly graduated assistant. He studied film in New York. His energy runs against Paul’s stillness. Paul asks him to find a woman. She is called Dara and she no longer wants to act. Jean goes off to persuade her. The road runs to near Venice and from there to New York. A rivalry grows up between the two men as well. Jean-Louis Trintignant and Laura Morante take the leads in Alain Tanner’s French and Swiss coproduction of 1987.