In an post-apocalyptic future, a group of young terrorists fights desperately against the obscure "Professor", the personification of all that is unwholesome in society, who ingeniously controls the ruins of civilization.

A young Russian man arrives in Berlin in search of a woman, but becomes entangled with two others one of whom falls in love with him and another who represents a classic Russian heroine like out of a novel from one of his countrymen idols.

Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds — with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk — that it might be possible for him to take human form.

It is shortly after the fall of the Wall and Kadir is released from an East Berlin psychiatric clinic. Resolved to begin life over again in Germany, he soon has to accept that there is no longer a place for him.