(in French; translated as Zazie in the Metro and sometimes called Zazie) is a 1960 French film directed by Louis Malle, based on the 1959 novel Zazie dans le Métro by Raymond Queneau. Frequently surreal, and full of visual and verbal jokes, the intricate plot follows a group of protean characters around a crowded Paris during a Métro strike. Plot At a Paris railway terminus, Gabriel greets his sister Jeanne, who leaves her ten-year-old daughter Zazie with him and goes off with her latest lover. Gabriel takes the child out to the taxi of his friend Charles, to Zazie's dismay: she wants to go on the Métro but it is on strike. They arrive at Turandot's café, above which Gabriel lodges, and he hands the child over to his wife Albertine, who puts her to bed. Gabriel gets himself ready to go to work, on the way out getting into a dispute with Turandot, who is appalled by Zazie's precocity and filthy language. In the morning, Zazie sneaks out alone but Turandot spots her and follows her. When he tries to take her home, she accuses him of paedophilia and a crowd gathers. Turandot is obliged to slink away and, when Gabriel returns from work, over several glasses tells him what has happened. After talking to Gridoux, the cobbler next door, instead of searching, Gabriel decides to go to bed. Zazie meanwhile is happily exploring Paris, trying every Métro station but all are shut. An elegant man picks her up and takes her to the flea market, where he buys her a pair of jeans and treats her to a dish of mussels. To reward his curiosity about her, she tells him how her mother killed her father gruesomely with an axe but was acquitted. She then describes life with her mother's lover, who got too interested in her, so she has been passed on to her uncle. Sensing that the stranger also is getting too interested in her, she picks up her jeans and leaves. He accuses her of theft and a crowd gathers. He pretends to be a plain-clothes policemen and escorts Zazie back to her uncle's apartment, where a surprised Gabriel submits to the fake cop's interrogation. After a suggestion that Gabriel is prostituting the forward little girl, he is forced to reveal what his night job is: a drag act in a club. After the alleged