Vittoria has just suffered the break-up of an imperfect relationship with a staunch intellectual when a brash young stockbroker makes his first tentative romantic advances, but the couple's innermost fears prevent their relationship from becoming a pure expression of their love. The winner of a Special Jury prize at Cannes, this exquisitely performed and photographed drama defines Antonioni's thematic preoccupation with the difficulties of communication and the impossibility of love; completing his 60s trilogy on doomed relationships in a fractured world (alongside L'Avventura and La Notte).