Paulina Is Leaving (1969) Characters, Setting & Themes Explained

The story takes place in a war-torn town marked by civil conflict, featuring ruined streets, checkpoints, and a fractured social order. Key locations include the cramped apartment where Paulina lives with her brothers, a bustling café, a psychiatric clinic that represents institutional control, and a brothel that becomes the town's only functioning institution. The forest also appears as a space where rebel groups gather.

• war-torn town
• setting
• locations
• civil war
• apartment
• clinic
• brothel

The film does not specify an explicit time period. The setting suggests an ambiguous, timeless version of France during civil conflict, with references to checkpoints, deserters, and rebel groups that evoke mid-20th century European wars, though the exact era remains unclear and deliberately enigmatic.

• time period
• era
• setting
• civil war france

Paulina is the central protagonist portrayed by Bulle Ogier. She is a volatile young woman who leaves the apartment she shares with her brothers, thrusting herself into a disorienting world of madness and violence. Her journey takes her from the family home through a psychiatric clinic to a brothel, as she struggles for autonomy within a collapsing social order.

• paulina
• protagonist
• bulle ogier
• character

Hortense, played by Laura Betti, is a former opera singer who runs the town's brothel alongside the Old Uncle. She wields significant influence over Paulina's fate and uses social rituals like cocktail parties as instruments of control and performance in the besieged town. She represents both power and exploitation.

• hortense
• laura betti
• brothel
• character

The Old Uncle, played by André Julien, is a philosophical figure who subjects Paulina to endless discourse in a room dominated by a globe. He uses dialogue as a tool to probe morality, power, and worldliness in the destabilized town, representing the intellectual and manipulative forces at play in the narrative.

• old uncle
• andré julien
• philosophical character
• discourse

The brothel becomes the town's only functioning institution amid civil conflict, representing a paradoxical axis of order in a collapsing society. It is where Hortense wields influence over Paulina's fate, using social rituals and performative events to police behavior while the surrounding town falls apart.

• brothel
• institution
• hortense
• control
• social order

The psychiatric clinic serves as the town's paradoxical axis of institutional control. Paulina is introduced and examined through a questionnaire displayed on a cinema screen, positioning her within the institution's project of observation and control. The clinic represents how institutional power operates in a crumbling society.

• psychiatric clinic
• institution
• control
• questionnaire
• examination

Paulina has two brothers: Nicolas and Olivier. Nicolas appears in chains at the clinic, signaling the town's collapse as he is carted off as a deserter. Olivier leaves for the forest to join a rebel group, embodying the pull of resistance and the costs of choosing sides in the divided land.

• nicolas
• olivier
• brothers
• resistance fighters
• deserters
• forest

Civil war casts a long shadow over every interaction in the film, forcing characters to negotiate danger, loyalties, and the limits of safety. Checkpoints and gunfire punctuate daily life, and the conflict infiltrates personal moments, showing how broader upheaval fuses with intimate family friction.

• civil war
• conflict
• checkpoints
• gunfire
• societal collapse

The theme of identity follows Paulina's journey from apartment to clinic to the forest as a quest for self amid exploitation and confinement. Her agency is tested by manipulation and shifting loyalties, forcing her to redefine who she is in a world where institutions falter. The narrative threads identity with survival in a fractured landscape.

• identity
• self-discovery
• autonomy
• paulina's journey
• survival

Control is depicted through institutional power structures, the clinic and brothel, that shape Paulina's fate. Hortense and the Old Uncle wield influence to direct her path, while a cocktail party invitation becomes a performative tool that polices behavior. The clinic's questionnaire and examination formalize this control over individuals in a crumbling society.

• control
• institutional power
• manipulation
• hortense
• old uncle
• questionnaire

The forest serves as the gathering place for rebel groups fighting in the civil conflict. Olivier, Paulina's brother, leaves for the forest to join the resistance, embodying the choice to take sides in the divided land. The forest represents the space of rebellion and the costs of armed resistance.

• forest
• rebels
• resistance
• olivier
• rebel group