Set during the Bosnian war in the early 1990s, Luka is a mild-mannered railway clerk whose life is turned upside down, not just by the outbreak of the war, but when his wife runs off with a local musician. Then Luka's son is conscripted and eventually captured in the fighting. To recover his son, Luka is commanded to guard a pretty young Muslim nurse who will be used in a hostage swapping operation.

Belgrade, the summer of 1991. Yugoslavia is falling apart. Gavran can't get a driving licence because he is color blind. He is a rural Bosnian introvert obsessed with trucks. So, as soon as he is released from prison, he steals a truck to go on a joyride. Suzana, a city girl, discovers she is pregnant, but until she's due for an abortion, she decides to go to Dubrovnik. She hitchikes and Gavran almost runs her over. She is unhurt, but she blackmails him to take her to Dubrovnik. Two people from different worlds, equally removed from the real one. For him she is the first woman he can talk to; for her he is just another idiot to add to the long list of them that she has so far compiled. But the pressure of danger and the intimations of war force them together. The world about them has become so absurd that they seem to each other the only sober people left.

Boško Pavlović is an intelligent, educated, careful, romantic young man whom women find magically attractive. But, things take a bad turn for him when he carelessly gets involved with the sister of a powerful Serbian tycoon and she commits suicide. Wishing to avenge his sister, the tycoon sends two extremely dangerous goons to find and punish Boško. Inspector Gavrić also searches for him, since he is the policeman in charge of the case.