Olga and Ruth become friends. Olga is independent, separated from her husband, living with an immigrant pianist, and teaching feminist literature. Ruth is withdrawn, a painter, possibly mentally ill. Ruth dreams in black and white, sometimes of her suicide. Olga lectures on a 19th-century writer, von Günderrode, a suicide after the breakup of her intense friendship with Bettina Brentano. Ruth's husband Franz encourages the women's friendship, then, as Olga draws Ruth out and the friendship deepens, he becomes jealous. After the women travel to Egypt, Franz has a tirade. Ruth seems crushed between her husband and her friend, and how she responds is the film's climax.
Nelly
A young woman who works in a bookstore has been terrified by nightmares about having committed suicide in a past lifetime, combined with a sense of déjà vu regarding a specific apartment building. When she meets a young man who works in an optical company, whether she knows it or not, she is that much closer to the truth about her visions.
