Early 20th century. Martha is an English middle aged woman who lives in South Africa. One day, while she's travelling to visit her brother who's started the military career, her train is attacked by the Boers. Peter, an English soldier, saves her life and that brief encounter creates a strong bond between the two. Peter is accused of disertion and gets arrested. Martha realises her relationship with Peter is considered scandalous and also finds out that even her brother has intercepted some letters Peter had written to her. Without hesitations, Martha leaves Peter and his fiancee behind and goes to find her love. Peter follows his instinct and escapes from the trench to run towards her beloved Martha.
Suddenly, the scenery changes and the film takes us to Paris in 1940. We now have two new main characters: Claire, a French woman, and Gabriel, a Russian man. They're both musicians. The language barrier is overcome by their passionate feelings for each other and communication is held through music and body language.
They lead a happy life in their house where they prepare for concerts and love each other. But after some time Claire begins to suffer as she can't “talk” to Gabriel and know more about him and his past life. Little by little, she feels frustration growing. They keep on playing together, but something is “not working” any more. They try to get over that moment, but something has broken and their happiness starts to fade. But there's a fire and Gabriel gets hurt.
We are in hospital, but the young man who's Iying in bed is not Gabriel... it's Giuseppe, an Italian boy of today's times. He's had an accident with his scooter and is in a coma. His schoolmates regularly go and visit and try to stimulate him by talking to him. Summertime arrives and everybody goes on holiday. The only one who remains in town is Naty: she's the youngest in the group and, day after day, keeps on going to visit Giuseppe. She talks to him non-stop, with tenderness and joy. She tells him about ali those little and ordinary events, she makes up tales and jokes.
Her pure innocence leads her to gain the doctor's friendship, who opens up to her, disclosing he's desperately in love with one of the nurses. Naty gives attention and love and never asks for anything in return. Naty is sitting in the removal company's truck leading her and her family to a new house in another town. She's very sad. But an unexpected coincidence makes her jump out of the van and run towards the hospital.