Maxim is a young Muscovite who journeys from Russia to the south of France to visit his mother in her home amidst the lofty mountains of Montagne Sainte-Victoire. He finds her in poor health and is overwhelmed with grief when she abruptly passes away. In the throes of mourning, he reconnects with his French half-sister Marie Louise, whom he hardly saw. Despite the language barrier and accustomed estrangement, the pair grows closer through their shared sense of loss.
In a small Cuban fishing village, Joel, the oldest brother in a traditional family, is heartbroken when his fiancée marries someone her family prefers. He moves to Havana, hoping to find a new life. Gorgeously photogenic, Havana and the Cuban countryside are exquisitely captured in director Kosyrev-Nesterov's elegiac feature debut.
The film is divided into two distinct stories with the same setting: the back-stage of the Moscow Operetta theater with the Can-Can metaphor which is a high-energy and physically demanding dance. Human relationships, betrayals, and the relationship between parents and children are the same common denominator found in the two parts of the film.
