This short film introduces us to the "automatistes," followers of an abstract art form that developed in Montreal. The movement, initiated by Paul-Émile Borduas, is explained by the artists themselves when narrator Bruce Ruddick drops in at their cooperative studio. The film also captures painter Paterson Ewen at his home and joins the crowd at L'Échouerie, the artists' rendezvous spot. Dr. Robert Hubbard, chief curator of the National Gallery of Canada, comments on non-objective art in general and automatism in particular.

A man's car somehow becomes completely autonomous and takes the powerless driver, to a scrap yard, or a 'cemetery for cars', where several more vehicles are waiting to be crushed by powerful reducing machines, their passengers still inside.