A collective portrait of the Latvian Red Riflemen is made up of memories told by the old men themselves. Unique and harsh are their destinies during the World War I and the revolution, at the opposite fronts of civil war, in 1930s. The victories of the Riflemen, their courage, confidence, pain and tragedy. The authors of the film have been able to save these tales from the relentless flow of time and make everyone realise the role of the Latvian Riflemen in history and nation.
During the summer holidays, the children's company gathers around the Rhine, but the curious boy Kārlis stays alone. The girl Herta comes from Riga to visit her relatives. She spends time with interest and listens to Karl's stories. The offended Reinis and his friends play an evil joke with Kārlis, wanting to laugh at the different boy.
Based on a story by Janis Lapsa, written by Janis Lapsa and Andris Kolbergs, film is a singular work, filled with human warmth. It is a story about a talented surgeon Markalns, who after a serious personal crisis, returns to his native town in order to start his life anew. The attention is concentrated on the inner world of Markalns, his feelings in this so important period of his life, when to endure and to proceed means to regain the lost sense of life and himself. His character and emotional world opens in a wide scale: in collisions with colleagues, patients, friends, himself. He is contradictory, but even in moments of low spirits, virile. A real warmth and balance of mind is brought in the life of the outwardly robust and clumsy surgeon by a shy small-town girl Irita, called Doggie.
An accidental meeting helps to learn a lot of new in surrounding world and his soul, to realize that youth is one of the most important stages of human life.
A feature shot as a documentary, with minimal interference in the surrounding action. The resulting film is a truthful and innocent portrayal of the era with no imitations or conscious borrowings but with its own avant-garde experiments.