Mateusz, Igor, Marlon, and Paulina attend the same high school. After returning from Budapest, Mateusz learns that one of his classmates, a boy named Bąbel, has hanged himself on the school playground. Distraught by the tragedy of his friend, he decides to conduct his own investigation into his death. Igor, who found Bąbel's body, knows what happened but is afraid to speak up. The same is true of other students, and even teachers, who are mainly preoccupied with their own personal problems. He sees his last chance in a conversation with Paulina, who is in love with him, but the girl leaves him alone in his fight to find out the truth.

Anthropology professor Michal develops two overwhelming obsessions. The first one is a mummified, 3,000 year-old, perfectly preserved body of a shaman he and his colleagues have recently dragged out of a swamp. The second is an enigmatic student he meets by chance at a railway station.

Franz Maurer, a compromised cop, former officer of the criminal department of the Warsaw's police, is released from prison where he was doing time for his brutality and murders. He is awaited by Nowy, a former police colleague. Franz tries to go straight starting hard work in a steel mill. Nevertheless, he must leave the factory as a criminal with an uncertain past when he doesn't join the strike organized by the workers' union. At the same time, a merciless war continues in former Yugoslavia. Wolf and William, two high rank officers, come to Poland in order to organize a network selling and smuggling arms to Yugoslavia by way of Albania.