Two teenage boys flee from a moving train, shedding, as they run, long black coats that have the letters "KL" (the abbreviation for
Konzentrationslager, which is German for "
concentration camp") painted in white on the back. Behind them can be heard shouts and gunfire. The film employs little dialogue, and the boys' escape through forests and swamps and across rocky terrain is interpolated with depictions of the memories, dreams, and hallucinations of the younger of the two boys. He recalls exchanging his shoes with the older boy for a piece of food. When the shoes, which are too small, start to hobble the older boy, the younger boy imagines the two of them walking down a deserted city street wearing shiny new shoes, the older boy twirling a fancy cane instead of leaning on a stick. In an out of sequence, non-consecutive series of dreams and hallucinations, the younger boy imagines traveling home to
Prague by train and
tram, walking around, passing two Nazi soldiers without incident, meeting a girl, and repeatedly ringing the doorbell at an apartment, all while wearing the coat that identifies him as a concentration camp escapee. The boys come across a farm. They see the farmer's wife bring the farmer lunch out in the field, and the younger boy follows the wife back into the house to ask for food. He struggles with thoughts of murder and sex, the film repeatedly showing both possibilities, but ultimately just silently takes the few slices of bread she offers and leaves. Eventually, the boys are caught by a shooting party of elderly German-speaking men after the older boy's injured foot makes him unable to catch and jump onto a passing truck. The old men detain the boys in a beer hall, where they sit in a corner while the men drink, eat, sing, and dance. The local mayor says a passing patrol will take the boys away that evening and a military court will decide what to do with them. As they wait, the younger boy remembers the escape from the train and gets the older boy to agree, though apathetically, to attack the military patrol so they can escape again. Two gunshots are heard, and the boys are seen lying still outside in the mud. Back in the beer hall, the mayor tells them to get out. As they walk away, the leader of the shooting party calls out, "Ready, aim, fire," but the old men merely clap and laugh and begin singing. The younger boy again imagines himself in Prague, and then he and the older boy are walking in the woods alone. The ending is ambiguous: either the boys have been spared, or they are headed to their execution; the last shot is either real, or a memory, or imaginary. ==Cast==