Passe-parole anchors its story to a news story, which quickly reveals itself as a pretext for creating a sensitive and carnal portrait of a generation centered around two main characters, Pierre and Mila, and a well-established group of thirty-somethings. They are journalists, teachers, carpenters, artists, living between Paris, Marseille, and Brussels. Mario Valero stages fragments of daily life and interweaves them with urban and bucolic impressionistic bursts. The noise of the world in the background—street rumors, visual echoes of demonstrations, snippets of news, presidential speeches—marks the passing of time. We're not sure if separating is a good decision. We're not sure where to live. " Why do we walk on eggshells as soon as we talk about politics ?" A shot lingers at the opening on a computer screen where it searches for the right word, just as the agile camera seems to search for the right distance between zooming in and out. Emotional ups and downs follow one another without narrative salience. A sharp montage abruptly interrupts the parties as well as the characters' intimate conversations: Passe-parole strives to let nothing unfold or take root in scenes framed on the bodies. This fragmentation distils a dull uncertainty and translates a floating and confused world. Nourished by the New Wave, by brilliantly mastering the codes and motifs, Passe-parole nevertheless remains a proudly enigmatic film, which produces no discourse to explain itself. It draws an emotional landscape in autumnal colors, a symptom of a withering and a sadness dug out by very beautiful polyphonic songs with nostalgic accents. What then remains and resists are the faces, friends, loved ones, gathered by Mario Valero in close-up and caressing shots, like a bouquet of flowers that we know will wilt.