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One night in a shabby bar Helena meets a little girl whose father begs money for drinks by getting his daughter to sing. Helena takes pity on the girl and assists her in her performance. The girl attaches herself to her and follows Helena. All night long, through the night-time streets of modern-day Helsinki, Helena flees the strange girl. The girl inevitably finds her, until it finally dawns on Helena that she is actually fleeing from herself. The girl is her mirror, and she recalls the little Helena, who was also abandoned and exploited: The twins Helena and Irene were born in Helsinki toward the close of the Second World War. A few months later, their mother leaves them in the care of their grandmother, an old Communist, and flees with a German soldier to central Europe. Their grandmother calls the girls Vladimir and Ilyich, after Lenin. From an early age, Irene is beautiful and admired while Helena keeps her distance. Their life under the protection of their grandmother ends with her sudden death. At the age of eight, the girls find themselves in a children’s home. There they create a world of their own, excluding all others. They are like two halves of the same person. This symbiotic love accompanies them throughout their lives. „Fire Eater“, says Pirjo Honkasalo, „deals with the theme of the passing on of evil, with how the burden flows from one generation to the next until someone halts it. It also deals with the themes of symbiotic love and separation“.