"There was a time when I had too much respect for nature. I used to look at things and landscapes and leave them alone. That’s over, now I will intervene." -Henri Michaux (Mes Propriétés/My Properties) Jean-Benoît is seventeen and lives with his mother in the suburbs of Rouen. When he was twelve, his father unexpectedly committed suicide. As a vulnerable adolescent, threatened by temptations of self-destruction and irresolute half-measures, he is permanently on the razor’s edge. At the end of the summer, he embarks on an apprenticeship to be a mechanic — a promise he wants to keep for his father’s sake: to learn a trade, to prove himself and make something of himself. But Jean-Benoît is faced with more than one apprenticeship. His meeting with a young woman, Héléna, with whom he discovers love and kindness, comes up against the abdication of parental responsibility and violence of a mother. And he also has to settle into life in the garage, among men. Filmed for over three years, the film is part of the process and becomes a place of learning and reflection in its own right. By confronting Jean-Benoît with his own image, it becomes a relay and gives him the means to act; work carried out in common, to recreate the difficulty and delicacy of becoming an adult.