Wed just as World War II breaks out, Jeanne (Emmanuelle Béart) and her military husband Louis (Daniel Auteuil) are separated almost immediately when Louis is taken prisoner. In his absence, the passionate and compulsively needy Jeanne enters into a succession of affairs. Upon Louis's return, their marriage is continually strained as his military career posts him across postwar Europe, Indochina, and Syria. Throughout these decades, Jeanne maintains a obsessively persistent affair with German prisoner-of-war Mathias Behrens (Gabriel Barylli), navigating a cycle of reunions, deception, and destructive obsession.