In an old nails factory in the suburbs of Hamburg, Neumeier has the dancers of the Opera Ballet working on his choreographic masterpiece, St. Matthew's Passion.
In the not too distant future, in the year 1999: In Germany, payment may only be made by credit card, which leads to many people purchasing things they cannot pay for.
Coco Dupree is a New York performance artist who makes a living dancing topless in a bar. There she meets a mob boss who calls himself God, a thug named Richie, and a kept woman named Desiree.
A young woman arrives in the city searching for her mother, whom she finds working in a nightclub, unaware that she is known to everyone there as the 'dreamer' because she is an alcoholic woman who spends her time soliciting customers and earning commissions from their drink purchases.
In 1896 the Berlin noble doctor Dr. Wilhelm Holtfreter takes over his well-to-do wife Mathilde and takes over the country doctor's office in the Prussian district of Westprignitz from the late Dr.