Désiré Landru

Boro's adventure begins in Paris in the late twenties. As a minor employee in a photographic agency, he works for a pittance. However, thanks to his love of life, his handsome appearance and his appeal to women, he leads a varied and turbulent life. In spite of his numerous affairs, the great love of his life is his cousin, Maryika, the famous actress from Berlin. When Boro learns that Maryika is expected in Munich for the premiere of her latest film, he decides to visit her there. Boro is disappointed in his meeting with Maryika; he has to spend the night alone on the couch.

In the hot summer of 1940 the German troops are just outside Paris, and numerous Parisians are leaving the city in a complete panic. Luce Ader, the sensitive daughter of a factory owner, decides somewhat belatedly to escape as well, together with her arrogant fiancé Bruno. Since they have a luxury automobile, the elderly society lady Daine Lessing decides to join them, and brings along the sensitive homosexual diplomat with her. The four of them finally leave the city in the hopelessly overloaded luxury car, only to get stuck in the middle of a seemingly endless column of refugees along a dusty road outside Paris...

In the post-war Paris, a young Jewish boy whose parents were deported, met in the subway a well-off boy of the same age with whom he became friends. A second encounter with Max solitary character and rasping will mark him. With these two people the antipodes of one another he will reach adulthood.

In a small town in the West of France, during the German Occupation, a room is requisitioned by a Wehrmacht captain, Werner von Ebrennac. The house where he now stays is inhabited by young Jeanne, who makes a living by giving piano lessons, and by her grandfather. Quite upset, the two "hosts" decide to resist the occupier by never speaking a word to him. Now Werner is a lover of France and its culture, and he tries to persuade them that a rapprochement between Germany and France would be beneficial for the two nations. Quite unexpectedly Jeanne, little by little, falls in love with Werner. At the same time, the Francophile officer loses his illusions, realizing at last that what Nazi Germany actually wants is to thrall France and to stifle its culture...

1936. Rafael, son of a Spanish nobleman, leaves the French Catholic institution where he was resident, recalled in his country by his father. Senior officer in Franco's army, it is that his son is involved in the civil war that tore Spain. Before joining the front, Rafael is assigned to a unit whose main mission is to take care of prisoners and execute subversive elements. The garrison was commanded by Colonel Masagual, a friend's father Rafael. Very old regime , the colonel who lives openly with his homosexuality Casado, his aide, is an ambiguous character, melancholy and cynical lucidity.