The setting is a shabby estate presided over by Milou (Michel Piccoli), a genial man in his sixties who lives the life of a lazy country sensualist: he keeps bees, browns in the sun, and gropes the housekeeper.

NEWYORKER: May Fools

We hear the words near the start of the movie, yet the chosen man Cardinal Melville (Michel Piccoli), a compromise candidate, advanced in years does not appear on the balcony.

NEWYORKER: Have Mercy

Yet the drama is framed with great elegance, and, in the pathos of Piccoli an old man as harried as a child we feel how weighty and stifling the robes of state must be.

NEWYORKER: We Have a Pope

When the director Manoel de Oliveira wants to show that his elderly protagonist, Gilbert (Michel Piccoli), is an actor, he starts the film with fourteen minutes of a stage performance of a play by Ionesco (featuring Catherine Deneuve, in a cameo).

NEWYORKER: I'm Going Home