A beautiful young housewife, Nora, is trying to convince her tight-laced, bourgeois husband, Torvald, to give her some extra money for the holidays, even if he has to borrow it. Fassbinder's interpretation of "A dolls house".

In Montauban in 1944, Julien Dandieu is a surgeon in the local hospital. Frightened by the German army entering Montauban, he asks his friend Francois to drive his wife and his daughter in the back country village where Julien has an old castle. One week later, Julien decides to meet them for the week end, but the Germans are already occupying the village.