Melville's second film, became a significant influence among French film-makers and earned Melville renown as a maverick who could do wonderful things outside his country's studio system. The film is based on a 1929 novel by poet and film-maker Jean Cocteau, who also wrote the script with Melville. The story of a sister and brother who withdraw into their own, insulated world to play out suggestively erotic dramas, has a fluid, lyrical movement.