The story begins in a small rural village in Ladimirevci, Eastern Croatia in 1943, where a land owner Sima is helping the Partisan Movement and the official Ustasha regime in order to save the life of his son Beneš, who is enlisted in the German army. Sima doesn't want to let his son fight for the wrong side any more, and doesn't want to give him to the Partisans either, so he hides him in his attic for the time being. The story is interwoven with episodes of Sima trying to muster a beautiful stallion - Sokol - who only answers to his son Beneš and clearly doesn't like his old man.

After returning from the Eastern Front to their small Croatian village as veterans of the First World War, Jovan Stanisavljević (nicknamed Čaruga) and his comrade known only as Mali join forces with the gang led by a local bandit and communist revolutionary Boža The Red. After Boža is brutally murdered by law enforcement officials, Čaruga takes over as the gang's leader, turning them into a bloodthirsty troop that won't take no for an answer.

Zagreb, Yugoslavia in 1890. A group of high-school students run away on an adventure that ends in scandal. The ringleader, Gusta, is expelled from school and sent to stay with his uncle in rural Turopolje. Here, a totally new world opens up to him, where the internal tragedies of the people are played out against the castle of Brezovica and a small town of wooden-framed houses. People end up in this idyllic exile because of some previous "sin" and try then to make the best of their lives there. But memories of the outside world impinge on their happiness.