An elderly survivor of World War 1 is fed up with the situation in Germany so he tries to take it down. But he can't do it alone.

A mature and visually elegant period romance that remains one of the earliest and most compassionate overtly gay-themed films in movie history. Based upon Herman Bang's 1902 novel, Dreyer's Michael refashions the classical Greek myth of Jupiter and Ganymede into a love triangle between an aging artist, Zoret, his protagonist Michael, and Princess Zamikoff, an aristocratic femme fatale as entranced by Michael’s youthful beauty as Zoret is.

A young doctor gets stuck on a ship after treating an injured first mate. Later, he rescues a woman from plane wreckage, and with the help of the cook, he hides her away from the rowdy and dangerous crew.

When a travelling troupe threatens to unleash a saucy Berlin revue on the provincial town of Emilsburg, the local Morality Society, a band of sanctimonious middle-aged men, stages a protest. Meanwhile, the reigning monarch is concerned that his son and heir is not living his life to the full. Ninon d’Hauteville, a showgirl and the revue’s star attraction, takes a job as piano teacher to the young prince after her engagement at the local theatre was brought to a premature end, a result of the Morality Society’s interference. It doesn’t take long for those hypocrites to get wind of this. While on the outside they appear to be concerned with running the immoral woman out of their town, behind closed doors they rank among the new piano teacher’s most ardent pupils. However, Ninon, out to right the wrong done against her, secretly keeps a “diary” of their visits, recording each encounter on film with a hidden camera.

It was not just the children who were treated badly by the wealthy Weimar republic. Robert Kramer is released from prison but struggles to adjust to civilian life. His father disowns him, his wife has left him for another man. There is no work. He eventually arrives in a shelter for the homeless, and seeks salvation through Emma, a prostitute.

In 1921, we follow two women - Marie and Grete - from the same poor Viennese neighborhood, as they try to better the lives of themselves and their families during the period of Austrian postwar hyperinflation.