The Night of the Hunted 1980

Élisabeth, Brigitte Lahaie, a frightened young woman, is found one cold, dark night by a man driving through the countryside. He pulls her into his car and drives her to his apartment in Paris, unaware of another naked woman calling out in the distance—the La vieille femme, Natalie Perrey—a haunting counterpoint to the moment. The woman inside the car is confused and insists there are people after her, and she seems unable to anchor herself to reality as the man introduces himself simply as Robert, a warmth flickering between them even as shadows loom.

Inside, Élisabeth discovers she cannot remember anything for more than a few minutes, a fragile tether to memory that slips away as soon as it forms. The pair share a brief, intimate moment as Robert, Alain Duclos, urges her to memorize his face so that this time together will endure. When morning comes, Robert must leave for work, and the delicate balance of trust is abruptly disrupted: Dr. Francis, Bernard Papineau, breaks into the apartment to persuade Élisabeth to return to the clinic from which she escaped, where patients are treated for memory loss.

Back at the clinic, Elizabeth’s memory flickers to the woman who cried out the night before, but her recall remains fragmentary, with only the two names shared between them. The two attempt another escape and manage to reach out to Robert, only to be recaptured. Robert searches for answers and discovers that the clinic houses people whose memories fade, and that the doctors insist a dangerous disease is slowly erasing their minds. He refuses to accept the doctors’ explanation and remains determined to rescue Élisabeth from a fate he does not fully understand.

The doctors begin to dispose of those whose memories have vanished, pruning the lives that memory has already forgotten. Robert finally locates Élisabeth, but the disease has overtaken her completely. In a final, devastating turn, Dr. Francis shoots Robert in the head, and he becomes as memoryless as Élisabeth. Unaware of their surroundings, Élisabeth and Robert join hands and walk forward, side by side, into an uncertain, silent fate, leaving viewers to question what is real and what memory really means in a world where both are vanishing.