An Antwerp journalist finds his daily life increasingly disrupted by unexplained phenomena, such as an authentic letter from 1919 that refers to an event taking place at a much later date. Because these disturbances are consistently linked to the name “Joachim Stiller,” the journalist becomes obsessed with it. The resolution, which is closely tied to his traumatic experiences from the Second World War, takes place with a psychiatrist—and later at an abandoned railway station in an Antwerp suburb. Interwoven with this is a subplot about an Antwerp art dealer who believes he can become rich through a new form of painting. To achieve this, he takes a mentally disabled artist hostage. The narrative also follows various romantic entanglements involving the journalist, which ultimately lead to his happy experience of fatherhood.

A forty-year-old man loses his work and is unemployed. There is a continual coming and going between uncomfortable in his own skin unemployed person, his mistress - a middle-class - and an exuberant and fragile girl.

West Flanders, 1940. The Germans have invaded Belgium. In a state of panic, thousands of people flee to France. Among them are ten-year-old Waldo and his parents. They travel through the Poperinge and Ypres region toward the border. There, Waldo’s parents are killed in a bombardment. Waldo continues toward the coast with his fourteen-year-old neighbor, Vera. A journey with a tragic end