Composed of two separate stories, Munk's breakthrough film was heralded as fully capturing "the heroic gesture and bitter irony of Polish fate." The first section follows Dzidzius, a small–time scammer, full–time drunkard, and seeming part-time member of the Warsaw Uprising ("they always think of medals, but never of supper"). Far happier downing illicit alcohol stashes than battling Nazis, "Dodo," as he's known to the many women he chases after, winds up delivering messages across enemy lines, an errand–boy on the accidental edge of heroism. The second section takes place in a POW camp for captured Uprising officers; divided in petty squabbles, they remain united only by the memory of a lieutenant who escaped the camp. In reality, though, the lieutenant only escaped them. Munk's take on ordinary, almost accidental heroism was viewed in Poland as a skeptical humanist companion piece to Andrzej Wajda's heroic romanticist Kanal.