This film tells the story of a fatal amour fou in Vienna at the turn of the 19th century: a fateful love triangle involving loyalty, submission, boldness and obsession. Faced with the intoxication of the fin de siècle and the social and artistic background of the beginning Modern Age, the friendship between the controversial composer Arnold Schoenberg and the young genius painter Richard Gerstl turns into a power struggle revolving around Schoenberg’s sensuous wife Mathilde. She soon finds herself in the position of a muse torn between two maniacal artistic personalities - the rebels become rivals - and the dangerous game turns into a stirring erotic intrigue, which ends in the young painter’s bizarre suicide, while Mathilde flees into madness rendering her love immortal.