The film is composed around a violent incident, happened in 1956. Upon hearing the news that the Russians were approaching, the dwellers of the Home for the Disabled armed themselves. Followed by stares by people living in the area they marched along Hermina road, or went in wheelchairs, on crutches, hobbling, dragging rifles and a heavy machine-gun...

Jancsó’s farce, similar to the previous ones, is about our time and about death. Pepe marries into a family of mafiosi, with the father-in-law rolling in money. In a joint venture they establish the first Hungarian Prison Limited company, where there is a menu, the prisoners are residents, and they furnish the place of execution for those volunteering to execute themselves. It turns out that the first voluntary hanging should be demonstrated on Pepe. In 180 AD Emperor Marcus Aurelius is dying in Vindobona, being fed with blades of hay by uncle Miki himself, and his son Kornél Mundruczó. Kapa provides for communication: he insists on telling lies, lies and again lies. Furthermore, there are several to die and to revive, to win and to lose, and Melancholy Béla is still alive.

By the notes of Fiáth Pompeiusz, the one-time friend of Kapa and Pepe, Professor Szirtes has solved the secret of the time machine, and he realizes the invention relying on "special" H2O. Kapa and Pepe shall return by it into the past in order to set time right, which is out of joint, that is, to correct history, to save King Louis II, and prevent the Mohács Disaster. Pepe yields to the not too tender persuasion to enter upon the great journey through time, dies and revives, and they arrive at the battlefield of Mohács in time. Kapa films the events. The Turks win and cut off the king’s, Pepe’s, head, still the Hungarians dictate the peace treaty. Kapa and Pepe want to return, they fill the time machine up with water from the well, yet it won’t start. Even so Kapa and Pepe hover over Budapest and quarrel.

This time, Kapa and Pepe are first of all prisoners of war – and convicts taken to forced labor service, Jews, Hungarian soldiers, German soldiers. Once they are to be executed, then again they are to perform executions. The film tells in spectacular episodes about the fact that in the past more than one century and a half we kept marching from war to war; occupation and liberation turned out to be indifferent, and why couldn’t the Jews execute the SS-guys? Our heroes hover about dilapidated barracks, then again on the bridges of the capital they guess whose satellites or eternal friends for all times we might be just now. In the cupboard, among the preserved fruit bottles, Stalin is still hiding. The authors of the film are cited before court, then in a showcase hospital they are waiting for the end to come. A Soviet soldier-maid closes the film with a Péter Nádas-quote.

The film relates the cruel reality of a small mountain village. Inspired by the 100-year-old painting Il quarto stato (1901) by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, it takes the characters and situation of the painting as a starting point and creats an original fiction. Written by Anonymous

1990 film by Jean-Paul Rappeneau