Plot Summary

In 1877, in a watch factory in a valley in north-western Switzerland, Josephine produces balance spindles, tiny parts that ensure the agitation movement (“unrueh") of the mechanical watches. She soon grows uneasy with the organisation of work and possession in the village and its factory and joins the anarchist worker movement of the local watchmakers. There she meets Piotr Kropotkin, a moony Russian traveller. The two of them meet at a time when new technologies such as time measurement, photography, and the telegraph are transforming the social order, and anarchist discourse is addressing emerging nationalism. During a walk in the woods, Josephine and Piotr ask themselves whether time, money, and the government are not all but fictions.