Without warning, Mélie disembarks on the cargo ship where her father has the sailor's blues. He remembers his drifts and his friend Max who used to get him into some crazy situations. He remembers Alice and Luc whom he decided to avenge. He has his grenade ready. But Melie has just arrived.

The furniture factory in which all the young guys in this film work is also full of older workers who make fun of their long hair, which for them is a badge of their independence. The boss, particularly, thinks long hair on men is dirty. When they refuse to cut their hair, he finds an excuse to fire them. The meaning of long hair is felt particularly deeply for one fellow, a painter, who, when he succumbs to his fathers' pleas that he cut his hair, turns his paintings to the wall and burns himself to death.