In the 1890s, Father Adolf Daens goes to Aalst, a textile town where child labor is rife, pay and working conditions are horrible, the poor have no vote, and the Catholic church backs the petite bourgeoisie in oppressing workers. He writes a few columns for the Catholic paper, and soon workers are listening and the powerful are in an uproar. He's expelled from the Catholic party, so he starts the Christian Democrats and is elected to Parliament. After Rome disciplines him, he must choose between two callings, as priest and as champion of workers. In subplots, a courageous young woman falls in love with a socialist and survives a shop foreman's rape; children die; prelates play billiards.

Andrzej, who lives in the lowlands, comes to Zakopane. He rents a carriage and orders himself to be taken to the Strążyska Valley.

In Old Hollywood, a woman's reality distorts, transforming the once familiar landscape of a jazz bar into a nightmarish realm where time warps, voices shift, and the leering men morph into an otherworldly horror.