Tena, a young Slavonian woman becomes aware of her own beauty which makes her fall into a state of moral decay. Her newly discovered promiscuity eventually makes her fellow villagers turn on her.

After Stipe Zvonarov returned from the Austro-Hungarian army to his Slavic village, he found his wife Mara and mother. Women rightly expect Stipe to accept rural jobs, but he can no longer accept the monotony and restrictions of rural life.

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.