A dazzling tale of desire, deception ...and the passionate power of dreams.

Yasha Mazur (Arkin) is a turn-of-the-20th-century Jewish stage magician, conman and mystic. He tours through eastern Europe for his show while at the same time destroying his own career progressively through his personal problems. Nearly everywhere he goes, Yasha has a local girlfriend, from the youthful Zeftel (Perrine), to the feisty Elizabeta (Winters). His burned out manager/impresario Wolsky (Jacobi) arranges for him to have one more chance at theatrical success, which requires that he pull off a never seen before trick in a Warsaw theater.

The film was a box office and critical failure.[3] As an example, Time Out London wrote:

“ The subject matter is rare enough to be beguiling. Unfortunately Golan's treatment, with its mixture of art house pretensions and vulgarity, founders at precisely those points where it departs from Isaac Bashevis Singer's original Yiddish novel. Where that used clear-eyed tender realism to point toward ambiguity of experience and mystery, Golan overdramatises, tips into hysteria, and substitutes a specious mysticism that is sadly literal.[4]