Melkior Tresic is one of many intellectuals in 1941 Zagreb who is helplessly waiting for the encroaching war.

Just before the breakout of World War II in Yugoslavia in 1941, young artist and theater critic from Zagreb, Melkior Tresic, spends his days enjoying the company of beautiful girls like Enka and partaking in friendly drunken debates with intellectuals and actors in smoke-filled taverns. His blissful bohemian existence forcibly ends with his conscription into the army. The oppression of the boot camp breaks Melkior and he desperately tries to find a way out by faking illness, which backfires.