A loose adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “White Nights,” the film follows Jacques, an artist adrift, who intervenes when Marthe, a desolate young woman, contemplates suicide. Over four consecutive nights in Paris, they exchange stories, suppressing and revealing their emotional lives, and attempt to build a connection.  Bresson’s formal minimalism and emotional restraint heighten the quiet desperation and yearning.  “In the secular turn Bresson reveals an unexpected sense of humor and worldly irony. The transformation of Paris at night into a dream landscape pulsing with electric mystery is reminiscent of Minnelli, although the economy of expression is clearly Bresson’s. A very beautiful and essential film” –David Kehr, The Chicago Reader.