Young Ivo Kolar is a student from Zagreb who, just before World War II, arrives in his native village in Slavonia, where his father Luka and mother Kata live. War is imminent, Jews live in fear, and Volksdeutschers are divided into Nazi sympathizers and those who consider Croatia their homeland. The war will take Ivo and his best friend Matija Mata Čačić on different paths, so while Mata will become an Ustasha, Ivo will end up in the partisans, marry the caring Vera and become a respected communist. However, the conflict with the rigid post-war socialist system will confront him with numerous temptations and, in his forties, will lead him to opposite sides from his friend Joka and a powerful fellow Španc.