Balthus, who for most of his life lived in seclusion and shunned publicity, is one of this century's most enigmatic painters. This film is based around a series of conversations with the artist at home in Switzerland, and offers a fascinating insight into his personality as he talks about his inspirations, his subject matter and the modern world. It chronicles the life of the artist whose only admirers in the 1930s were Picasso and Giacometti, through the 1960s with his appointment as Director of the prestigious French Academy in Rome, into the 1980s when some of his canvasses were selling for £3 million. The ambivalent eroticism in his paintings of adolescent girls is examined, as is the latent menace lurking behind the carefully controlled compositions. Contributions from family and friends including Thadee Klossowski, Jean Clair, Director of the Musée Picasso in Paris, and a former child model reveal the paradox of Balthus' gracious, haunted world.