A pastor and ethnographer visits a remote corner of 19th-century Lithuania where folk customs associated with the area's pagan past still have a hold on the population.
A family saga of Barbara Ostrzeńska-Niechcic and Bogumił Niechcic against the backdrop of the January Uprising of 1863 and World War I. The film is a rather straightforward and faithful adaptation of a novel by Maria Dabrowska with the same title. The plot is woven around the changing fortunes of a noble (upper-class) Niechcic family in the pre-WWI Poland. There are two main crossing threads: a social history one and an existential one.
Zenon Ziembiewicz, a young, budding journalist, comes to his parents' manor house for a vacation. Here he enters into an affair with the lovely Justyna Bogutówna, the daughter of a cook. When the canicule comes to an end, Zenon packs his bags and leaves for Paris to study. Returning after a year with a doctorate in political science, he makes a fast and glamorous career. He becomes the editor-in-chief of the local newspaper and, soon after, mayor of the city. He also marries Elzbieta Biecka, but still does not break up with Justyna.
