From the black background of the screen, the sounds of a violin are heard, for a moment the Mysterious Mountain appears over the endless sea ... curls of words flash... A chord and in the haze of sleep appears the face of the sleeping Diotima. Another chord - and again there is a yellowish lining of titles ...
Diotima, "Honored by Zeus." Is it an accident, a consonance of the names of the dancer and the “wise woman” from the dialogue “Feast” of Plato, who told Socrates who Eros was and “what his deeds”? Diotima, Priestess of Love...
What dreamed of a dancer, like Sleeping Beauty, immersed in the land of dreams? A premonition of the love she embodies in the dance - "the expression of her rebellious soul." She dances in languor for Him, who appeared in her dreams, standing on the highest peak.
And He appeared... Meeting. The mountain climber Karl descends from the mountains, looking for beauty in them and overcoming the danger of reflecting himself. "The triumphant spring rises into the mountains," and with it Diotima, seeking in the surrounding Beauty. Nature becomes harsher, on the border of winter and spring, rocks and streams, snow and flowers, reality and sleep, there is a meeting of two worlds, two dialectical opposites: restraint and immediacy, Order and House, stone and water - Charles and Diotima.
Time passes, in the rush of ski competitions, participants sweep through the mountains: they “have no time to pay attention to the winter fairy tale of snow-capped fir trees.” Carl and Diotima's relationship develops, and the engagement is scheduled. The rock and the sea will never be engaged. Like the sea, which in perpetual motion, Diotima flirts with her young friend, a casual witness of which becomes Carl and mistaken for treason.
And thunder broke, drama broke out.
A drama that destroys Carl's Inner World, of which the dancer was a part. He must do something extraordinary, overcome his betrayal, and rebuild the world and the hierarchy of values. - Will he find himself? What choice will he make: risk his life for a rival friend or succumb to anger and self-preservation?
The drama that manifests Diotima is more valuable than the “natural” immediate feelings, the thirst and joy of life. According to the film, a man is a world for a woman, thanks to and through which she learns the “big” world, the world around her.
A drama that divides people into two camps: sophisticated aristocrats who have given up the risky search for two climbers lost in the mountains at a time when “storms and avalanches sing their wild song; and walls are alive in the whirlpool of avalanches.” And "people of the mountains" with unpretentious songs to accordion, which go to the rescue. Will these two worlds ever find a common language?
“Why do the rocks seem so beautiful?” “Because we give them our soul.” Wildly and fantastically, like a Gothic cathedral, rises from the powerful foundation of its most beautiful peak. “Among us, this summit is the pinnacle of Friendship.”
Before the viewer, like the Yggdrasil World Tree, rooted in everyday life, routine is the “earth,” and branches extending into the realm of the soul, the spirit into the “heaven,” two planes: the manifest and the invisible, which coexist. On the one hand - a household drama, on the other - the area of myth.
“Peace lies over the eternal sea ... calmly rolls over long waves of human suffering and aspirations. And above his holy mountain shines the greatest word, the word that stands above mankind.