A young lawyer stumbles upon a vast conspiracy while investigating a brutal murder case.
According to an African fairy tale, every child receives a song from their parents that they carry with them throughout their lives. Richard, an orphaned Tanzanian immigrant, has never had his own song. How he got one before his unexpected death and the significant, though unintended, roles played by the dark-tourism entrepreneur Drakuhl, the gray-haired hair model Barney and the heavy-drinking music teacher Kiesel won't be revealed here. Merely that the song Dead Man Play becomes an international hit.
Nick Gutlicht lives of illegally selling valuable books, owes money to a bunch of other crooks and has to hide from them. By chance he ends up in the mansion of the famous, now very old philosopher Curt Ledig, who despite the age related forgetfulness and pathological kitchen phobia resists to move to his daughter. Nick is hired by the family as watchdog. Now Curt can work on a presentation for the upcoming symposium, which anybody thinks he's capable of anymore. Nick thinks he has an excellent hiding place. This partnership of convenience of the two individuals quickly develops its own momentum. Curt regards Nick as an exciting research object and subjects him to an absurd therapy. For Nick it's a unique opportunity to fund his finances with Curt's phenomenal library. The strange couple is going through turmoil of incalculable proportions.
The incredible story of how the mummified corpse of a 40-year-old man was discovered by a hunter in one of the most remote parts of the country. The dead man's detailed notes reveal that he actually committed suicide through self-imposed starvation only the summer before. Liechti's film is a stunning rapprochement of a fictional text, which itself is based upon a true event: a cinematic manifesto for life, challenged by the main character's radical renunciation of life itself.