The documentary shows shots filmed by Chris Marker in Siberia , with voice -over commentary. He reviews different subjects: the lives of the people there, the modernization of society, the gold prospectors, etc. and is punctuated by digressions, such as a cartoon about mammoths , a false advertisement extolling the merits of reindeer , and a remarkable sequence in Yakutsk illustrating the multiple interpretations that a voice-over can give to the same images.