Roman, 40, unemployed English teacher and frustrated writer, lives alone in an attic-facing the Eiffel Tower-which belongs to Francesca, his older « ex-Muse. » Arriving from Naples long ago to become a painter, she has wound up a commercial artist. Lilia, the St-Petersburger, is a young blonde with striking two-colored eyes, a disillusioned casino dealer married to her first boyfriend.
Roman meets Lilia, on a lightning trip to Paris with a girlfriend, during a firework display over the Seine River. After an enchanting stroll till dawn, they kiss goodbye in front of the hotel…
Winter. Fascinated by Roman’s rapturous SMS’s, deciphered every night at the casino, Lilia flies back to the City of Light, while husband Ivan stays behind with their little boy, Alyosha. There follows a week on Cloud Nine between the walls of the attic. Has our hero finally found that missing half, in whose eyes he should read the great love story-to be written down for Her only?!
Roman will look for the answer in St-Petersburg. He actually rents for the summer the flat belonging to Lilia’s family, moving out on that occasion. Thus, it is in the marriage bed, through the interminable twilights of White Nights, that the initially ever-inspired lover must find out… his « Muse » cannot reach orgasm. And he is wrenched from sleep by a growing bellyache: his « brainchild »-undelivered. Understanding very little Russian, he wanders around Peter the Great’s architectural fantasy, the birthplace of so many literary legends, and strives to contend with the new « Wild East »: derelict yards behind magnificent facades, prostitutes lolling in the lobbies of luxury hotels, grandmas selling produce and cheap clothes next to BMW’s…
Early August. Leaving on vacation, Lilia decides to break up. Desperate, Roman shadows lonely charmers along the melancholy canals, seeking that pair of eyes seemingly deeper than the Neva —with the help of vodka— in which to drown his sorrow.
Yet, once she has gone back to gray daily routine, for how long will Lilia manage to forget the stars lit in her « windows of the soul » by the fiery Romantic?
Paris. All seems lost to Roman among the last autumn leaves. His suffering is reflected in Francesca’s motherly gaze: she remembers the aspiring author, newly arrived from across the Atlantic, moving into the attic with her; but also their son, Amedeo, who has just left for the South of France to go to college. Torn apart, she has visions… moving her to pick up painting again, which she quit following chilbirth. And soon Roman, whose room is plastered with blow-ups of eyes, opening in his dreams, starts mailing madly lyrical pieces to his unknown eternal love…
The paths of the three main characters will cross two others:
Mysterious Viola, with long ebony-black hair and sky-blue irises, appears and disappears between the gardens of Paris and Saint-Petersburg. She lost the love of her life, having surrendered herself to a magician, whose show was called « The Word was made Flesh. » Unable to find the right words to express her pain, she has since mostly mumbled, whispered, or given out primitive shouts. Then one day she begins to hear bits of lines from a poem composed by Roman throughout the film…
The Ultraman is an acrobat-musician from Vitebsk who believes he has come out of a Chagall painting. Playing his clarinet, he balances on the parapets lining the quays of the Seine, then climbs to rooftops…
The end of the story will be read by Roman in the illuminated eyes of his heroine ; Lilia or another…; at the moment of ecstasy….