The Wake is the title of a large-scale multimedia project, the main element of which is an eight-hour long silent movie. The film is based on Finnegans Wake by James Joyce (London 1939), a limit-transgressing, perhaps even limit-dissolving book that not only transgresses the limits of what literature is and is capable of, but inscribes transgressions on almost all conceivable levels. It is at the same time dream book, history book and necrology. It is almost impossible to determine whether we are dealing with a long poem, a prose narrative or a piece of drama.

For the last ten years 40-year-old Jeppe has paid daily visits to the nursing home where his crippled wife, Tove, has been put after a serious traffic accident to remain for the rest of her life. Desperate about this meningless fate, Jeppe has put everything else in life aside and has chosen to be faithful and devoted to her. But this cannot go on, his pseudo-life becomes too much for his crippled wife. She pretends to be in love with her male nurse and throws Jeppe out.

During a family gathering, a celebration for their father's 60th birthday, the eldest son presents a speech that reveals a shocking secret to everyone.