This is the first major achievement of postwar Hungarian cinema as well as a key film in the history of neorealist cinema. The film is a De Sica-like tale of homeless war orphans in devastated postwar Hungary. Living by their wits and stealing to eat, a ragged band of scavenging children take refuge in a ruined castle, only to discover it's inhabited by an eccentric orchestra conductor who has been emotionally and spiritually destroyed by war.