The Meldrews go on holiday to Portugal with Mrs Warboys, who is hoping for romance with her penpal Alfonso. Photographer Martin Trout follows them there, believing they have a roll of film that belongs to him.
A young man from a high-bourgeois family, Henrique receives mysterious phone calls from a woman at the barracks where he is serving in the military, which attracts him to meetings without consequences.
"Kilas" (a Portuguese misrepresentation of the English word "killers") is the nickname of a petty con-man who gets involved with a deadly ring of spies.
Pedro is a young agricultural worker who gets caught in the middle of a fight between two families, kills a man and escapes to the capital. He can't find work,resorts to begging, but keeps his mountaineer pride. He starts a new life with a prostitute who is nice to him, but nothing works. He returns home, and alone, and now he finds life there is sad as well.
