What's to Be Done? (II) is a philosophical essay on film. It questions the Marxist heritage - its progressive reification on a theoretical level and the rut it is in on a practical level - through the perspective of history, to which it claimed to hold the key. There is thoughtful self-criticism but no remorse in this lively and searching film which has focused on a capacity to surprise rather than to come up with pat answers. The basis of the film is the juxtaposition of two presences, two discourses, two men, two generations: Jean Burles (1916), a shining example of the militant worker whose thirst for knowledge ultimately leads him to the most radical kind of questioning; Yves Clot (1952), who also starts out as a worker, but goes on to become a philosopher who, while a fervent defender of the concept, is aware that "meaning is not soluble in concept".