In the final days of WWII, during the chaotic Soviet occupation, a seventeen-year-old Hungarian boy, Jancsó's alter ego, wanders his own countryside. He is captured by occupying Soviet troops, released and then, after donning a German uniform for warmth, captured once more. Sent to assist a wounded young Russian soldier guarding a diary herd the two strike up a firm friendship and this is the detailed episode at the crux of his travels. Throughout the movie displaced people drift; bandits, escaped prisoners, soldiers, ex-soldiers, families on wagons, people in striped shirts et al, many searching for food and all wary of each other. This is a seminal piece of film making from a master of the Hungarian New Wave.