A documentary film about the painter Louisa Matthíasdóttir. In amongst the turmoil and agitation of downtown Manhattan, Lousia Matthíasdóttir focuses on the calm and serene Icelandic countryside.
There is something bizarre going on at the Hartcourt Academy for boys and girls. All the students are vanishing left and right under mysterious circumstances and no one except the new girl, Susan Galligan knows what has become of them because she is having visions that students are the victims of violent murders!
What are Ilona Herfurt and her boyfriend Dietmar Freistrath doing in the old mine? Where does the money come from that her son Jimmy finds under the newspaper? Where have the unique and intricately carved works of art, often passed down for generations, disappeared to from the village in the Ore Mountains? What do the carver Gerlach and his foster daughter llona have to do with it? Questions upon questions that are burning under the detective's nails.
Nathaniel Box, a self-styled prophet, along with his daughter Barbara and her fiancé Curtis, holds a night time press conference in an underground car park, devoutly believing that "a new Messiah for a New Age" will appear there before dawn - and their wait does not go unrewarded.
Writes Viola: "Sodium Vapor was recorded over a period of several weeks in the hours between one and five in the morning on the streets of an industrial area in lower Manhattan.
The weekly brass band rehearsal is an enjoyable, light-hearted occasion. Then Mathew, the conductor, introduces James, a newcomer to the village, who is an enthusiastic bandsman from the north, where they do these things properly.