Germany in the 90s: art critic Sebastian Zöllner is on the hunt for glory. He wants to write a tell-all book about Manuel Kaminski, a once prominent, now almost forgotten painter, pupil of Matisse and friend of Picasso, who’s retreated to a chalet in Graubünden and has long been blind.

Zöllner tracks him down, unscrupulously invades his life, steals some of his late paintings, and entices him to travel to Belgium, where Kaminski's childhood sweetheart Theresa, who’s long been assumed dead, is thought to live. On the way, Zöllner begins to suspect that the old man might have the advantage over him

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