An old film director, unhappy with the movie he's shooting about a Hungarian circus stranded in Rome during the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising, faces divorce from his producer wife and other problems.

Arturo is a talented interpreter, a solitary, pragmatic and conventional person. For some time he has been having trouble carrying out his work; he has gone out of sync. Sounds are delayed according to what he sees. His affliction is degenerative: the delay keeps increasing day by day. Seconds become minutes, minutes, hours.