In France during World War II, a poor and illiterate man, Henri Fortin, is introduced to Victor Hugo's classic novel Les Misérables and begins to see parallels between the book and his own life.
The plot is about a trial against three men who tried to earn loads of money by illegal methods to get to Canada and about the lawyers and the judge who get on with the trial and who are being unfaithful to their couples.
A film with emphasis on visuals and music, the plot concerns characters who meet in present time, mainly the male gypsy Jesus, and the female thief and con-artist Odona, who share parallel experiences from lives 2000 years in the past. These stories are juxtaposed.
