The essence and moral of the Moldovian people living the rural life of the 90's. A film about people being materialstic, and losing it all in the end, Tarkovsky style.

The young soldier Vasily Lemekhov has returned from the hospital and met a young woman Natasha in Chisinau.

Grishka Hamuraru, the grandson of the underground fighter Samson Hamuraru, who is still unjustly considered a traitor in the Moldovan village of Vioreni for having led a partisan group to ruin during the war, decides to conduct his own investigation and restore his grandfather's good name.

About an ordinary collective farm worker, the Moldovan George Kruchanu. He is no longer alive, but he is remembered in the village. From the sharp, vivid character sketches of his fellow villagers, a picture of a rural truth-seeker emerges — a unique and complex man with a sharp, untamed character and a big heart.