A distressed young man murders the woman he loves in a cafe, watched by a large crowd. Fascinated by the crime she has witnessed, Anne Desbaresdes returns several times to the scene, forming a relationship with a man who also saw the murder, and drinking through the afternoon with him as he patiently answers her eager questions. Slowly, they find themselves being taken over by forces which threaten their own stability. Moderato Cantabile is a carefully woven tapestry of emotion, in which the characters' inner lives are reflected by the story's spaces and landscapes.

Presents the essential ideas of the founder of French surrealism

"Moderato Cantabile" is a carefully woven tapestry of emotion that begins with a jealous lover murdering the woman he loves. Fascinated by the crime, Anne returns several times to the bistro where it took place, drinking through the afternoon with the worker who patiently answers her eager questions, inventing what he does not know. This is a haunting, oblique love story, which perfectly demonstrates Duras' technique of associating human emotion with locales and landscapes.