A bricklayer, Jozef Haviar, decides to live with his family on the small farm of his father through the difficult years of the economic crisis. But on his return to his father's house he gets into a conflict with his brother. The life-and-death conflict between the two brothers documents the difficult situation of Slovak country life in the 1930s, the time of economic depression.

Concentration camp commander Kraft finds out that prisoner Kominek is a former professional boxer. Overnight, the prisoner is made Kraft's exercise partner and unwillingly rises to a privileged position at the camp. His anger over the death of his friend and co-prisoner leads to open revolt. The film brings a new view of human degradation during fascism by a tragic story of one man whose only chance for survival is to accept the rules of an unequal game.

The freshly graduated engineer gradually sobers up from his student ideals and encounters a different reality than he had expected. Few people understand his resistance to the established conditions in a prosperous company, and the hero's personal conflicts with his superiors deepen. He recognises hypocrisy: people say something different from what they really think. He encounters sycophancy and calculation whether he stays in the country or moves to the big city.