Vytautas Serys

A movie based on the stories by Antanas Vienuolis.

The first feature of Lithuanian Valdas Navasaitis is a drama which unravels the hopeless 1970s, when people were deprived of their roots and forced to sit and watch their lives slip from their fingers. In a decrepit house that once belonged to a bourgeois family, several families seek shelter. Senis, a 65-year-old alcoholic, lives on the ground floor with his wife and their 16-year-old daughter. Senis is a survivor of the Nazis as well as the communist camps. He drowns the pain of his memories in a nearby pub and in talking to a depressed young laborer, Lorenca. Later on, a young couple and a lonely eccentric who enjoys only his cat's company join the inhabitants. Children wile away the time with useless games or spying on adults. When Lorenca hangs himself at the ruins of a nearby factory, the lives are shaken up. During the dinner held for the deceased, they find a moment of common hope.

At the end of the war, a French plane was shot down by the Germans near the Nemunas River, but the injured pilot Andrė parachuted into a Lithuanian village. Domas, a miller, hides him in his mill, while young Saulė, who was Domas' bride, nurses him. They fall in love, but shortly after, Andrė's squadron mates Arrive. Five years after the end of the war, Saulė is still waiting for the Frenchman, who is said to have died near Nemunas.