Angel is a poacher who lives in the forest with his domineering mother. One day he goes to the city and meets Milagros, an escapee from a reform school and the lover of a known criminal so he takes her to his house in the mountains.
In a fictitious South American country there's lots of political tension, the labor-unions have all their members on strike. The public demands the return of politician B. from exile. However private trucker Pal can't afford to strike, so he's beaten up and his truck burned. In the headlines he's described as strike-breaker. This is only part of an intrigue which shall get him to murder B.
1647, Santiago, Chile. Don Henrico banishes his daughter, Josephe, to a convent when he learns she loves Jeronimo, a mestizo who's a teacher in the household. The lovers meet in secret, a child is born, the pair are condemned to die, and prelates scheme to seize Don Henrico's fortune. A moment before Josephe's public execution, an earthquake devastates Santiago. Josephe finds her baby and flees the rubble; Jeronimo survives, escapes, and finds her. The reunion brings joy and rebirth. He wants to build a Utopian community, without priests. She believes they can reenter Santiago society, forgiven. Class, race, and religion dictate a world order: is there a place for these lovers?
During the last years of Franco's dictatorship, Fernando, an old Republican exile, returns to his home in the Castilian village of Trescabañas and befriends Aurora, a young and very attractive teacher, with whom Juan, one of her teenage students, falls in love.
A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.
