Early 20th-century Latvia. Revolutionary Mārtiņš Robežnieks is arrested by the gendarmes, while his younger brother Jānis, a teacher dismissed for his rebellious speeches, returns to their family home. Initially, Jānis continues to agitate among the farm workers, but his marriage to the estate manager’s daughter gradually draws him away from the revolutionary cause. When the upheaval of 1905 reaches their homeland, Mārtiņš returns from Riga as peasants rise against the baron’s rule.

A widowed Latvian father's quest for a much-loved Dutch pen pal, whom he hasn't heard from in three decades, provides the basis of this comedy-drama. The father is accompanied by his traumatized and mute eight-year-old son whom he had to kidnap from a Riga hospital. Together, the two flee towards Holland where the father Yuris hopes to find his long-lost friend Marie, whom he remembers as a great beauty. During the long journey, father and son have several funny adventures, many of which occur because neither father nor son speak much Dutch. They finally arrive at Marie's door empty-handed. What they find, gives them little hope, for the lithe young idealist of Yuris' dreams has become middle-aged and cynical.