The movie is set in late 19th-century France, primarily at the fictional Lacombrade Academy, an all-boys boarding school located on the outskirts of the city of Arles in Provence. Serge Battour, the teenage son of a French viscount and a Roma woman, is sent to Lacombrade at the request of his late father. He is roomed with Gilbert Cocteau, a misanthropic student who is ostracized by the school's pupils and professors for his truancy and sexual relations with older male students. Serge's efforts to befriend his roommate, and Gilbert's efforts to simultaneously drive away and seduce Serge, form a complicated and disruptive relationship between the pair.