At the end of 1991, a prisoner Ivan escapes from Serbian camp. He finds a hideout in the property of a wealthy Serbian landowner Stevan, who eventually finds him and offers him two choices - to submit him to the authorities, or to make Ivan work for him. Ivan accepts the latter and while staying on the farm he gradually introduces the landowner's deranged family. He also meets his daughter-in-law Anica, a beautiful Croatian woman married to landowner's bloodthirsty son who fights in Croatia. A secret love affair is being developed between the two Croats.

Lifelong rivalry between police inspector and professional criminal escalates on New Years Eve, 1990.

Branko Kralj is an alienated businessman and avid chess fan. He is married to the attractive Visnja and they have a son. Their marriage is weak and Branko feels much closer to his mistress than to his wife. One day Kralj and Visnja travel on a half empty train. Kralj goes to a far away compartment for a game of chess, and leaves Visnja alone. Three men take advantage of the lone woman in her compartment and rape her.

A young Croatian painter Josip Račić in the solitude of a Parisian attic encounters unusual people and falls in love with a cabaret singer. The ambience of the cheap Parisian hotel mixes in the painter's mind with memories of his childhood and youth in the Slavonian plain, all these things finding their expression in his paintings that start to attract the attention of experts...