The intimate vocation of La chambre (1972), Je, tu, il, elle (1974) or Jeanne Dielman... (1976) and the exploration of urban spaces practiced in the later News from Home (1977) or Les rendez-vous d'Anna (1978) converge in the peculiar mosaic that is Toute une nuit. In the manner of the classic urban symphonies, the film proposes a multiple, fragmentary and minimalist portrait of the amorous (mis)encounters of several characters, barely identified, in the course of a summer night in Brussels. Through the paradoxical combination of narrative restlessness and serenity in the point of view, Akerman designs a choreography of situations, gestures and attitudes in which the most intense feelings emerge from minimal formulations: an exchange of glances, an embrace, an impatient wait, an escape on the run. Bars, restaurants, bachelor apartments, doorways, double beds or dreary hotel rooms serve as the setting for a melting pot of stories (or the suggestion of these) where the common denominator seems to be a desperate flight from loneliness or isolation. The memorable final sequence underscores the characters' agonizing struggle to maintain an authentic connection without being devoured by the alienating dynamics of the contemporary city. GABRIEL DOMÉNECH