Octavian Borcea, a middle aged peasant, goes through a social crisis when he decides to re-marry with a widower. He visits all his 5 children, then he returns in the village, where he burned his bridges.
In 1943 in a Romanian fishing village on the river Danube brothers Pavel and Simion compete for the love of Lia while the war is raging on.
Vulpașin is desperatley in love with Nastasia, but she is partial to Luca, which works at a factory outside the slum they live in ("accros the lifting gate").
