French New Wave filmmaker Agnes Varda writes and directs the intellectual drama Les Creatures. Michel Piccoli plays a novelist who gets in a severe car accident. He is injured and his wife (Catherine Deneuve) is rendered mute. They move to a small village on an island in order to recuperate, and for the husband to write his novel. He uses characters based on the townsfolk on the island. He meets a young man (Jacques Charrier) who is building a machine. They play chess and engage in a violent fight. The wife gives birth and regains her speech, and it is apparent that the young man only existed in the husband's imagination. The conclusion involves a futher distortion of fantasy and reality as the writer finishes his novel.