Historien om en øy

During a night in June, Kai is making an encounter with his wife's family, one after one. She has left him, and he wants to know why.

The film is a portrait of Liv Ullmann as an actress, director, human rights activist and a private person. The shows include Liv Ullmann directed work Enskilda samtal (1987) which had a screenplay by Ingmar Bergman and acted on his parents. This forms the starting point for a portrait of her previous relationships and cooperation with the Bergmann. There are also interviews with people who worked with Liv Ullmann on Broadway and clips from some of the older movies she played in. At the end, the film shows Liv Ullmann in Bosnia where she worked for UNICEF.

We meet the young violinist Erik Smith in the lap of his family with his wife Lise and his little daughter Lone. Erik is a young, aspiring musician who dreams of one day making a career as an interpreter of the great masters of music. At a concert where a well-known solo violinist has to interrupt, Erik Smith suddenly jumps in and gets his big breakthrough.

This black-and-white Norwegian film is a great rarity: a film with comic elements set in a mental ward which does not overstep the bounds of common sense or good taste.