Synopsis
Peer Gynt is a young man who has great potential as an artist but who is constantly at war with his physical desires. Despite his quest for absolute purity he repeatedly falls for the fleshy temptations of compromise, as he swaggers and seduces his way from the fjords of Norway to the deserts of Africa and back. Along the way he has a number of trials and adventures: he meets a young woman and they fall in love; he helps a bride escape from her wedding; he considers joining the Trolls; he becomes a successful businessman, loses it all, pretends to be an Arab prophet, and winds up in a lunatic asylum. Finally, he returns home to confront a creature called the Shadow, who has always been watching him and trying to teach him what it is to be human. It is the Shadow who forces Peer to consider returning to the woman he fell in love with so much earlier in the story, and pursue a career as an artist.