After the passing of her husband, the commissioned painter Anneliese Psiko decides to travel across the country. In the Austrian province of Styria, she discovers a strange work of art entitled "Weltmaschine" (World Machine). From now on, it will change her life significantly.
An alpine village shortly before the First World War. Widowed forester Rufman has little sympathy for his sons Friedel and Elias. Both find it difficult to cope with themselves. One day, a stranger appears whose curiosity confuses the suspicious villagers. Only Elias feels attracted to him. When a murder takes place in the village, suspicion soon falls on the forester's boys.
The married couple Carl and Vera Sylvester live far beyond their means. She is a regular customer at the Dorotheum art auctions, he puts up with Lilli, his lover, and has become addicted to gambling . Carl wants to use the business ruin to make a new start with his wife . He noticesnot that Vera has long since planned an infamous campaign of extermination against him .
