Eduard von Keyserling

Adapted from Eduard von Keyserling’s 1911 novel of the same title, Waves depicts both the lives and loves of an aristocratic German family during a summer holiday on the Baltic coast of what is now Lithuania, as well as the twilight of a social order and its mores in a world soon to be plunged into the cataclysm of world war.

At the beginning of the century. To punish him for his failure at school, Count Ivan Petrov takes his son Alexander to spend the two summer months in their Crimean estate, far from any distraction. For the 18-year-old, this is the beginning of a long period of isolation, one-on-one with a father whose severity he fears. Once on the spot, Ivan announces to his son the imminent arrival of his cousins Katia, whom he loves in silence, and Natacha, accompanied by their mother Elena. The joy of Alexander is short-lived, Natacha learning to him immediately that Katia comes in fact to celebrate her engagement with Nicolai. His dismay increases when he discovers that it is his father who arranged this marriage, of which Katia does not seem to be very happy.

Adrien does not see eye to eye with his patrician father about much. It is 1912, and the old man still believes in the old rules which strait-jacket "men of class." He believes that the elite have the right to conquer where they can, that they should refrain from publicizing their improprieties, and he is rabidly pro-military. Adrian, kicked out of his military school for his own improprieties (and hiding that from his father), is naturally drawn to Vicky a beautiful divorced woman and friend of the family who is staying at their mansion. The family tutor, a man of ordinary background (with some ideas which seem radical in this household) is similarly smitten. On the basis of their shared attraction, the two men form a friendship. Meanwhile, the object of their affection finds it diverting to toy with them.