In 1913, in Oklahoma, oil derrick owner Lena Doyle, aided by her father and a hobo, is stubbornly drilling for oil despite the pressure from major oil companies to sell her land.
A couple is suffering from sexual estrangement. The husband is having an affair with his secretary and the wife takes up with Sandra an interior decorator.
Shanta Dhamle lives a wealthy lifestyle in Bombay along with her dad, Shamrao, and mom, Ansuya. She incurs their displeasure when she falls in love and gets married to a poor and overly sensitive writer, Gopal, who moves in with them, and continues to suffer verbal abuse at Shamrao's hands.
Abel Hradscheck, the owner of an inn in the Oderbruch country, faces financial ruin. For this state of affairs, Ursula, his wife and former actress, is by no means free of blame.
In this film the director's recurring concerns return: the divisions in the Chilean left, and its contradictions between what the director calls the "traditional" and the "revolutionary" left.