Against the backdrop of World War II, the lives of a badly burned patient with amnesia (Ralph Fiennes), his nurse Hana (Juliette Binoche) and his lover Katharine (Kristen Scott Thomas) intertwine. Through flashbacks from an abandoned house in Italy, the patient's life story as a mapmaker in the North African desert is gradually reconstructed, and his identity is revealed. Troubling questions about his past life are raised by Caravaggio (Willem Defoe) while Hana begins a romance of her own with a sapper she meets while tending to her patient in Italy.