 Following a rough chronology from 1884 to 1894, when Norwegian artist Edvard Munch began expressionism and established himself as northern Europe s most maligned and controversial artist, the film also flashes back to the death from consumption of his mother, when he was five, his sister s death, and his near death at 13 from pulmonary disease. The film finds enduring significance in Munch s brief affair with "Mrs. Heiberg" and his participation in the café society of anarchist Hans Jaeger in Christiania and later in Berlin with Strindberg. Through it all comes Munch s melancholy and his desire to render on canvas, cardboard, paper, stone, and wood his innermost feelings.