Director : Christian de Chalonge
Actors : Maria Pacôme, Claude Rich, Hippolyte Girardot, Marianne Denicourt, Judith Henry, Philippe Torreton, Emmanuel Salinger, Robinson Stévenin, Julia Maraval
Feature film
Genres : Fiction
Subgenres : Drama
Production language : French
Nationality : 100% French (France)
French release : 8/21/96
Runtime : 1h 57mn
Current status : Released
Associate production company : Les Films du Losange, UGC Images
Co-production : Rhône-Alpes Cinéma, France 2 Cinéma
French distribution : Les Films du Losange
Film export/Foreign Sales : StudioCanal Image

On the eve of World War One, everything is bright and happy when the Mercadier family arrives from Paris, as usual, to spend the summer vacation with an uncle, the Count of Sainteville. The old Ch teau still has all its old charm and its memories, the French countryside is as pretty as a picture, the summer is hot and sunny and the mountain is a marvelous sight... But there are the new lodgers to contend with, these people from Lyons who are also there for the summer. They sow the seeds and soon everyone has caught the bug: the children learn their first lessons of physical love and jealousy; it rubs off on the parents, who abandon their cynical facades, wake up to the fact that their respective marriages have failed and give passion a trial. The older generation either sharpens its claws or takes flight. Appearances fly into fragments. Everyone seems to be tasting the honeyed pleasures of deceit and betrayal.