Wajda's homage to Zbigniew Cybulski, the "Polish James Dean" who starred in the director's ASHES AND DIAMONDS and died young. The movie follows the tribulations of a director attempting to make a movie with a Cybulski-like star who never shows up.

Zanussi has described the film as his most autobiographical work. A young boy in post-World War II, Communist-dominated Poland, whose father's decision to remain in Britain after the war has made his family politically-suspect with the local Party authorities, is sent by his mother to stay with an "aunt" (in reality an old family friend) in Warsaw.

Taming the Floods fulfills the dream of the landscape architect Jan Dijkstra: he can design an area in Poland that is regularly flooded by the river. Dijkstra wants to create a large nature reserve where people no longer have any influence: an area where the river can run its course and wolves can be set free. The fanatical landscape architect however does not bear in mind the needs of the local people. His younger colleague David is eventually sent to Poland to get things organised. Taming the Floods is a mixture of documentary and feature in which all the scenes are borrowed from situations which really happen or have happened. Alongside actors, roles are played by the local people, including farmers and a priest.

An idealistic scientist is encouraged by his wife to use his good looks to get ahead, but his new job carries with it temptations and traps.