A handful of men and women await the plane for Glasgow on the Hebridean island of Barra: visitors, a girl (Tilda Swinton) setting off for a job on the mainland, locals who have charge of the airport, and in their midst, Berger. Jaunty, vibrant and expansive, he is a mesmerising storyteller; and his tale, on the face of it a simple yarn of a peasant on a weekend trip to Venice, becomes a complex exploration of people and places, factories and farms, sex, politics, music...ways of being.