Traveling through an unnamed European country on the brink of war, sickly, intellectual Ester, her sister Anna and Anna’s young son, Johan, check into a near-empty hotel. A basic inability to communicate among the three seems only to worsen during their stay. Anna provokes her sister by enjoying a dalliance with a local man, while the boy, left to himself, has a series of enigmatic encounters that heighten the growing air of isolation.

A theater company rehearses Aristophanes play “Lysistrata” in which the Athenian women revolt to force the men to suspend the war and make peace. The three leading female actresses, Liz, Marianne and Gunilla, all live in humiliating circumstances to their men.

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.

Agnes, a lonely teenage girl, and her father befriend an escaped convict, named Joseph, who arrives at their farm in Brittany, France. When Joseph develops an attraction to Agnes, her father threatens to break up the union.

A harrowing tale of faith, revenge, and savagery in medieval Sweden.