Felix only ever thinks about one thing. He just wants to cycle, further and further, more and more recklessly, more and more extremely. His girlfriend Eva is not exactly thrilled about this. Although she was initially supportive, she has long since grown tired of playing the role of companion who can't keep up. She moves out of their shared apartment and leaves her cycling junkie alone. He can pedal as much as he wants, but he gradually finds himself thinking more and more about his strange situation. Back then, after he lost his driver's license, a cheap bike from the coffee shop around the corner was enough. Today, he is an addicted owner of various outrageously expensive racing machines. Is that still normal? Therapy is needed—and lo and behold, the specialists are well aware of the problem: men and women just don't go together.

A year on an Alpine farm: an older couple have two children, Belli, who wanted to be a teacher, and the younger Franzi, deaf, and although he works like a man, child-like. Belli teaches him. In his work, he can become frustrated, so when he throws an expensive mower over a cliff in a fit of pique, his father banishes him to the outskirts of the farm, where he uses pubescent energy to break rocks and build walls and cairns. (It's the tradition of the father's family, called "The Irascibles" by neighbors, to spend puberty doing this.) Belli visits him and they begin sleeping together. By winter, the boy is back in the house and Belli is pregnant. Soon her parents must know.

Claude, a militant anarchist, is caught stealing and is shot by a policeman while fleeing the scene. Dodo, a hairdresser, is hit by one of the stray bullets. They meet in the realm of the dead and together they visit familiar places and their loved ones. By debating their past with each other, they become close and fall in love. Because of their feelings they get the chance to return to life for twelve hours in order to prove the depth love they share.