A car driving way above the speed limit on an icy highway causes the death of a small boy. The police major behind the wheel calls his colleagues directly from the scene of the accident and they immediately take steps to cover his tracks. The devastated mother of the child is first falsely charged with drunkenness and neglect, and when the guilty major can’t bring himself to curb the explosion of police despotism prompted by his own cowardice, the boy’s parents’ efforts to obtain justice have a devastating impact on their lives. The desolation and barbarity of the story, compressed into one day and only a few locations, are reinforced by an almost black-and-white impression of the bleak snow-covered landscape along the highway, and the similarly oppressive interiors of the police building. Yet this isn’t the sort of terror elicited by a bloody action movie, it’s metaphysical in nature. The audience soon begins to read the film as a parable of sheer evil, stemming from the immaturity of individuals whose ability to act according to moral principles frequently fails miserably the first time they are confronted with an extreme situation.