A well-known Danish pianist named Zetterstrom returns after many years to Copenhagen to perform at a gala concert. Throughout his life Zetterstrom has forsaken human emotion in pursuit of perfection. The last time he was in Copenhagen, he had a tragic love affair, and since then he has shut it out of his mind. But upon his return to the city, he begins to have visions of the woman he loved before losing his memory completely. Even the places in Central Copenhagen where his love affair occurred are physically shut off. A bizarre, unspecified catastrophe has enclosed the area in an impermeable transparent shell called The Zone.