公元2500年，地球两极冰川大量消融，地球成了一片汪洋。人们只能在水上生存，建起了水上浮岛，泥土成了稀有之物。一天，来了一个孤独的海行者（凯文.科斯特纳 Kevin Costner 饰），他用了一罐泥土换了淡水和番茄苗。正当他要离开时，当地人发现他竟然长着鳃和蹼，认为他是怪物，把他关了起来，准备过两天将他处死。时日，海盗袭击了浮岛，海伦（珍妮.特里普里霍恩 Jeanne Tripplehorn 饰）和她的养女伊萝娜（蒂娜.米乔里诺 Tina Majorino 饰）没能赶上出逃的救生船，她们救出了海行者。海行者凭着过人的机智和勇敢，带着海伦和依蒙娜逃了出来。原来，海盗的目标只是伊萝娜，依蒙娜的身世藏着一个惊人的秘密……
The subject of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub’s Der Tod des Empedokles (The Death of Empedocles, 1987) is the Greek pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles (c. 490 BC – 430 BC), who lived in the Greek colony of Agrigentum in Sicily. His theories are mentioned in several of Plato’s dialogues. He maintained that all matter is made up of four irreducible elements: water, earth, air and fire. A mystic and a poet, he is considered to be the founder of classical rhetoric. He is also thought to be the last Greek philosopher to write in verse two fragments of his works survive: Katharmoi (Purifications) and Peri Phuseôs (On Nature). An advocate of democracy, he came into conflict with his fellow citizens of Agrigentum and, as result, was banished with his young disciple, Pausanius. When he was asked to return, he preferred to commit suicide by throwing himself into the active volcano at Mount Aetna.
The German writer Friedrich Hölderlin wrote two versions of Der Tod des Empedokles in 1798 and 1800, and a final third version in 1820, all three ultimately unfinished. They were conceived as five-act tragedies and all three differ in plot. According to Michael Hamburger, Hölderlin’s English-language translator,
the main reason why Hölderlin finished no version of the play must be that he remained too closely identified with Empedocles, at the very period in his life when his own view of the poet as philosopher, prophet and priest – and as tragic hero – was subject to perpetual crisis and re-examination.
Huillet-Straub’s The Death of Empedocles is based on Hölderlin’s first version (the longest of the three), whereas Black Sin is based on the third version.
