The camera moved from afar in the prologue and rested upon a still picture of an airport. Then spoke the narrator. The screen turned dark as if a curtain falls on the stage, marking the beginning of a play. "This is the story of a man...a few years before the outbreak of World War III." Only then did the audience realize the futuristic theme in grain, black-and-white images.
The story was told by all still pictures. The frozen sun, the plane, the deck, and a woman's face - the narrator stopped at her for the longest, as if that's how long the moment was left in the memory of the man, although still a boy at the time. With a sudden roar, everything came to a sudden end. A few pictures captured the astonished women and the crowd, and the scene ended with the boy's blurred view of the airport.
Orchestra briefly took over the narrator, who announced that "Paris was destroyed." Amid pictures of the dilapidated city, there was a mad scientist conducting time travel experiments on prisoners. After a few pictures of the dark, inhumane lab, the sound of a heartbeat appeared, signaling the start of the experiment on the protagonist. In shots that document the experiment, the heartbeats became more and more fast-paced, just as the increased frequency of jump cuts. The still pictures were gifted motion.
Then came the peacetime images in a peaceful sound. The experiment succeeded. The lighting gradually became brighter, until he finally saw the woman in his memory. There was high exposure in pictures of them together in the endless past. When he was woken up by the scientist, shadows filled in the frame, with a whispering sound. Brightness, darkness, over- and under-exposure, whispers - these elements repeat and interact with each other during his travel.
Their last meeting was in a museum of ageless animals - a metaphor of time. It was a minute of bright pictures and melodious music, yet ending suddenly as he looked up to where her finger pointed, sending him back to the laboratory. He traveled to the future, which was characterized by shadows on advanced humans. Then he was sent back again while receiving an offer for time travel from the future beings so that he would not be prosecuted by the scientists.
The beginning scene appeared again: the deck, the sun, and the face of the woman. He was sent back to his childhood. Pictures showing him happily running towards the woman were soon replaced by those of his jailors, following by him falling down after a gunshot. The camera exchanged between close-up shots of the woman's face and medium shots of his back. The movie ended with a shot of his body laying on the deck. It was his own death that he witnessed when he was a boy.