Dimitrij Rafalský
Raymond (Bernard Blancan) is a very lonely peasant who lives so detached from the world that the peasants of the village nearby his family house consider him as dead for more than 30 years. None sees him but people know he is around and, as all secretly reproach themselves to not have helped the young Raymond after his all family death before he disappeared, they consider the family house as haunted by Raymonds ghost.When Frédéric (Antoine Chappey), Caroline (Lucia Sanchez) and their children come from the city to install themselves in the countryside, they know nothing about these villages tells and find in Raymonds family house a rare opportunity.
The Popular Front wins elections, the Spanish Civil War begins, and Hitler and Stalin are manipulating and spying. The brilliant exile, Fiodor Voronin, a general at 20, is the deputy at the White Russian Military Union, probably slated to replace the aging Général Dobrinsky soon. Fiodor's Greek wife, Arsinoé, paints and stays away from politics, befriending Communist neighbors. Her health declines; the attentive Fiodor arranges care and, against the backdrop of Stalin's Great Purge, considers his options. He plays a chess game in which love of country, love of Arsinoé, ideology, petty jealousies, and the machinations of power roil in matters of life and death.
Raphael is a ghostwriter who takes a job writing for famous footy player Kevin. To his delight and his girlfriend, Murials horror, Kevins current girlfriend is an old (easily rekindled) flame of Raphaels. A freak accident leaves a close friend dead and Raphael is forced to reconsider his priorities.
Kopfrkingl enjoys his job at a crematorium in Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s. He likes reading the Tibetan book of the dead, and espouses the view that cremation relieves earthly suffering.
