Tessa de Loo

1920s Germany. Two sisters aged six years, no sooner see their remaining parent buried when they are torn apart. Lotte goes to live with her upper middle class Dutch aunt in Holland, Anna to work as a farm hand on her German uncle's rural farm. The World War II impacts each of their lives and finally in old age they meet again.

Isabelle is a famous and beloved actress from the Netherlands, who disappears when on Holiday in Belgium. She has been kidnapped by bartender Jeanne Bitor, an artist with a disfigured face. Jeanne is very bitter about her 'ugly' appearance, and she is obsessed with the process of dying and deterioration of animals and humans. Therefore, she abducts Isabelle and starves her to death, while painting her in different phases of the process.