An epic depicting the struggle of peasants versus landowners in Italy, from the beginning of the century through the end of World War II, tells the story of two young men born on the same day in 1900: a farm worker named Olmo who becomes an activist and freedom fighter, and his friend Alfredo, the son of the farm's owner, who has sympathy for the peasants but can't seem to break away from the attitudes and privileges of his class.