Viajando en el norte de Benin en busca de su ex, Cécile cruza el camino de una madre africana joven angustiada con un bebé en sus brazos. Cecile adoptará este niño africano que llamará Lancelot, y que crecerá en Francia. Con el tiempo, preocupada por el extraño comportamiento de Lancelot, decide ir con él a su país de origen en un intento de penetrar en el secreto que rodea su abandono.
François, a Jewish lad, works for an insurance company and is engaged to a Jewish girl. His world is very ordered and secure and perhaps feels a bit claustrophobic. When he observes that a murderer has been declared psychologically incompetent and is to be placed in a mental institution, probably for the rest of his life, François feels the murder's plight very keenly. As time goes by, the murderer's situation is more and more unbearable to him, and he breaks off his engagement. Afterward, he has a liaison with a girl he has not known before, an act that somehow frees him. Now he wants to free the murderer somehow.
