For his collaboration with the Germans, a young woman's father-in-law was hung from a tree in the family's backyard. Now the woman lives in the cursed house of her widowed mother-in-law. As the film opens, she is visiting her husband in the jail where he is imprisoned for his involvement in a drunken brawl. She is considering leaving her husband, as she has fallen in love with a surgeon who has briefly taken up residence in a house across the lake. This Latvian production won the State Prize of the Latvian Republic and later won the Grand Prize of the All Union Film Festival. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi