Gunnel Lindblom twists every plot and family conflict to the breaking point in her intense infidelity drama about a family on the verge of a nervous breakdown

A poor woman in a Swedish farming community struggles to feed her large family and is torn by her passion for two different men.

Through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander, we witness the delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family, a sprawling bourgeois clan in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Sweden.

When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.