Cristina
Manoel is an aging film director who travels with the film crew through Portugal in search of the origins of Afonso, a famous French actor whose father emigrated from Portugal to France and in process remembers his own youth.
Aurore
The crossroads of three characters: an old doctor with a general view of the world, a mother having difficulties in recovering her baby that she abandoned, and finally her young sister, a high school runaway in the heart of the problems of the suburbs. All three will meet around the Platonic tripartition, taken up by Paul Valéry: "To know... To be able... To want... Here is the triple key".
Ema (young)
Ema é uma jovem extraordinariamente bonita que se vê casada com Carlos de Paiva, um homem bom, senhor da Quinta de Vale Abraão, mas a quem ela não ama. À medida que o tempo passa, a monotonia toma conta dos seus dias e torna o casamento num hábito, levando Ema a procurar consolo nos braços de um amante.
Jo
Guillaume de Burlador is a private tutor who hits a low point sufficiently severe for him to contemplate a somewhat theatrical suicide. Instead he is taken off by flying boat to a mad French colonial possession bedecked by mad servants and crazy decor. Three educated and rather gorgeous women live there, and they hire him to tutor a young teenager, but more with plans to seduce him in mind.
