Hungary, 1950s. József Pelikán, who works as a dam keeper on the Danube, meets by chance Zoltán Dániel, an old friend whom he saved from death years before and who is now a powerful politician.
Luca, who regularly visits her bedridden mother-in-law, hides from her the fact that János, his son, has been arrested on a trumped up political charge.
This film describes the narrator's childhood, the years before and after the Hungarian Soviet Republic, in a burlesque and fabulous style and with the humour of a child's fantasy.
