In the late 19th century, a young woman moves to Amsterdam with her family and tries to make a living. Preyed upon by various men, she nonetheless rises in society.
A successful young writer is in search of his true destiny. Is it the life with his wife and typewriter in Amsterdam or the offers to go to the dreamworld of the Italian film city Cinecittà which is luring him? Trying to find this out he goes into retreat in the house of a befriended gay couple in the south of France.
Born in Amsterdam in 1943, Paul, a Jewish man, attempts to locate his twin brother (or perhaps his alter ego), who was abducted forty years ago and sent to a Nazi concentration camp. As he searches, he becomes increasingly immersed in the story of his life, as well as in an analysis of post-war Jewish identity.
