A Monkey in Winter

Albert Quentin runs a small hotel on the Normandy coast with his dutiful wife Suzanne. He is bored despite his earlier career as a marine in the French Navy, including service in China, and he drifts into drinking. The routine of life in a sleepy town weighs on him, and the thrill of his past feels distant.

During a massive Allied air raid, Albert is on a binge with his neighbor Esnault. They hurry back to the hotel’s cellar as explosions shake the town, where his terrified wife Suzanne hides. In the aftermath, Albert comforts her and vows that if their hotel stays intact he will give up drinking.

Fifteen years pass with Albert abstinent, yet boredom outweighs any sense of achievement. He continues to run the hotel and sustain the fragile peace of his marriage, but he longs for a spark that never returns. The quiet life leaves him feeling disconnected from his own former adventures.

On a quiet winter night, a nervous young man named Gabriel Fouquet books into the hotel. He heads to Esnault’s bar, calls his wife who has left him for Madrid, and returns thoroughly drunk. Albert, catching him in the street, brings him inside and begins to warm to the lonely stranger.

That first night, both men retreat into vivid dream worlds to escape reality. Albert relives and embellishes his exotic adventures in China, while Gabriel imagines himself as a Spanish macho hero—dancing flamenco and fighting bulls. The boundary between dream and reality blurs around them.

The next day Gabriel buys a sweater for a ten-year-old girl from the shopkeeper Landru and visits the convent where his daughter Marie is a boarder. He is too on edge to see her, and when she is called he bolts rather than face the encounter. Albert and Suzanne observe, torn between kindness and the strain of the situation.

Albert and Suzanne do what they can to be kind to Gabriel, but his dependence on drink continues to cause disturbances and upset the fragile balance in the hotel. The couple struggles to balance hospitality with the unpredictable danger Gabriel embodies.

Against the backdrop of pent-up tension, Albert and Gabriel drink heavily once more. They visit a brothel Albert hasn’t entered in fifteen years and, more importantly, erupt into a fight in Esnault’s bar. Their reckless buoyancy leads Landru to ignite his stock of fireworks on the beach as the night spirals out of control.

In a reckless bid to seize control of the situation, they force their way into the convent to abduct Marie. They are confronted by the head nun in a wheelchair, who stands her ground and refuses to release Marie until ten the following morning.

Gabriel retrieves his daughter, and the two are joined on the Paris train by a chastened Albert, who has renounced alcohol. He now plans to visit his father’s grave inland, signaling a shift from wild escapades to a quieter reckoning with his past.

On the journey, Albert tells Marie a vivid tale from China: lost monkeys creep into towns during winter, and when enough of them gather, a train is organized to take them back to their native forests. The story functions as a bridge between memory and present reality, highlighting Albert’s need for meaning.

Albert ends his current chapter by getting off the train at Lisieux, facing what he calls his long winter. The moment underscores a personal reckoning and a shift from external drama to inner reflection as he moves toward an uncertain future.