这部电影是由意大利、比利时、法国合拍的，曾获得金球奖最佳外语片，凯撒奖最佳服装设计、最佳音响以及奥斯卡最佳外语片提名。
古典音乐作曲家卡多（恩里克·洛维索 Enrico Lo Verso 饰）为了保全弟弟法瑞内利（斯特法诺·迪奥尼斯 Stefano Dionisi 饰）的声音不会因为成长而消失，不惜在他孩童时实施宫刑，从而让法瑞内利成为了伟大的歌唱家。兄弟两个人的命运就此相连，约定从此共有一切——音乐，荣誉，女人。法瑞内利的醉人的歌声及纯真的魅力迷倒了不少美女，卡多与弟弟分享一具肉体，并在感情和事业上处处控制着单纯的法瑞内利。终于有一天，了解真相的法瑞内利悲痛不已，无法原谅他的兄长对他的所作所为，从此两人决裂。在日食来临的时候，卡多割腕未遂，苏醒的他终于得到法瑞内利的原谅，于是，他在弟弟的女人爱丽丝肚子里留了个孩子作为对以前行为的补偿后悄然离去。

A young hopeful teenager is waiting for his unknown and fantasized father to come out of prison. His family dream life is seriously undermined by an exhausted mother and a man who, after so many years in jail, has become unable to be a responsible father.

保罗是个粗野的农民，不爱惜他养的动物。他对妻子Rosine也很少有温柔的举动，她受着煎熬，而他却不承认。一天, Rosine不能工作了，保罗聘用了一个健壮的季节工Eusebio, 他十分调皮且爱吹牛。在高山牧场，他的到来将改变保罗所塑造的习惯和规则。

Anne Trister follows director Léa Pool's route in life from youth in French speaking Switzerland to adulthood in Quebec in Canada. The film deals with issues of child abuse and bi-sexuality as well as the quest to find roots.
Art student Anne Trister has, like Lea Pool, a Jewish father and a gentile mother. Her father's death is what moves her to leave school and her lover in Switzerland behind and travel to Montreal in Canada for the last rites.
She stays with an older friend Alix, a child psychiatrist absorbed by the case of an abused little girl. Alix tries to help Anne to relate to her Jewish roots by telling her about a trip to the desert she once made. Anne is fascinated by the story and by Alix and falls in love with her.
In the meantime she expresses her feelings in art by creating a fantastic mural of the desert on the walls of a studio lent to her by one of her father's old friends.
However, Alix chooses for a man in her life and disturbed by her rejection Anne falls from scaffolding in her studio. When she comes to in hospital her studio and with it her dream world has been torn down. Now she must face reality and be free.
In the closing shots Alix receives a parcel containing a handful of sand and a short film of Anne in the desert.
The soundtrack prominently features a chanson by Danielle Messiah (De la main gauche) that lends the film much of its mood.