The woman-anthropologist researches roots of the human evolution. Psychic childhood trauma, caused by the death of her father, the captain of a submarine, in the W.W.II, periodically throws her out of balance. Phantoms of the prehistorical past and father's violent death collide in the scientist's subconsciousness and bring to life an unexpected theory of human evolution.
A Russian science-fiction film with, as unlikely source of inspiration, the well-known story by Edgar Allan Poe: The Murders in the Rue Morgue, in which an ape is responsible for a cruel murder. A woman is involved in an anthropological investigation into the first steps in the evolution from ape to man. The story of the film unfolds primarily in her subconscious. Prehistoric ghostly images from her investigation and memories of the dramatic death of her father - who died when she was still a little girl, when the submarine of which he was captain sunk - come together and form a very unexpected theory about the evolution of man.