The love story between Jean, a great French writer and his/her young mistress Marie Louise, ends during a long break from which each emerges willy-nilly, until fate puts them face to face with one another. In one version of the film, the main couple is made up of a man and a woman, in the other version, two women.
30-year-old factory worker Simon lives a solitary existence on a decrepit farm in the remote French countryside. Devoting his time to caring for his sister Estelle, who was left severely disabled when a childhood game went horribly wrong, Simon is plagued by guilt and depression. But he sees a way out, looking to otherworldly forces as a means of liberating both himself and his sister from the corporeal prisons in which they are confined.