Axel Heyst lives on a secluded island near the Dutch East Indies port of Surabaya. The year is 1913. While on personal business to the port, he visits the hotel owned by racist German Schomberg. An all-woman orchestra plays in the hotel each night, and orchestra owner, San Giacomo agrees to "sell" one of the girls, Alma, to Schomberg. She asks Heyst to save her from the villains and they escape to his island and live there with native servant Wang. Schomberg points sinister Mr. Jones and his two fellow bandits to that island, saying that the fortune lies ahead of them there.
In this film, told almost entirely in iambic pentameter, She is a scientist in a loveless marriage to Anthony, a devious politician. He is a Lebanese doctor in self-imposed exile, working as a chef in a London restaurant. They meet at a banquet and fall into a carefree, passionate relationship. But the contempt He perceives as a Muslim immigrant to the UK causes him to break up with She, offering little in the way of explanation, and return to his homeland. She drags his reasons out of him little by little and tries to sympathize. Keenly feeling the loss of his love, She flies to Havana to sort things out on the beach and in the cabarets. She sends him a ticket, but harbors no illusions that He will join her in this Caribbean melting pot.
