The plot

Mariano, an indigenous man wakes up very badly injured in front of a wall. He is in the Penitentiary, it is 1946. Gradually he manages to adapt to the sadistic dynamics of the place. Over the years he becomes aware of the damage he caused and regrets the crimes committed. After serving his sentence, now an old man, he opens a small church, which has a hidden function. Among his conflicts, he remembers his family's life. It starts with a coffee farm, it is 1926. Its owners, Germans, exploit their workers while keeping them in poverty. The tension is such that Gaspar and several friends brutally rebel against the farmers. The workers escape and establish a peaceful community, until, years later, soldiers viciously attack it, murdering María and Gaspar, leaving José orphaned.

Police take the little boy to a town to the south, with his uncles and Mariano, his cousin, a few years older than him. José adapts to the life of theft promoted by his new family. Eventually they prostitute him, generating a new dynamic of robbery, until one night Mariano kills an acquaintance of the mayor's son, so he flees, but leaves serious consequences for his family. Years later, a revolution overthrows the dictator, so in José's town, they rebel against exploitation. The authorities' response is a massacre, from which José manages to escape and settles in a colonial city. He manages to get a job in a cinema, where he spies on children, he begins to discover something dark within himself. After an altercation with his boss, he flees and travels to the capital, where he manages to reunite with Mariano after years of separation. His cousin has become a leader of a gang of thieves, orphaned children living on the streets. This reunion awakens a sadism that has been cultivated for years, which explodes when José and Mariano abuse lonely children, sometimes with promises of giving them animals. To cover their tracks, they murder their victims after the outrage. Anxious to continue committing the horrendous crimes, José is caught and he confesses to all the crimes, for which Mariano is also arrested, who is sentenced to 30 years in prison. José is sentenced to death by shooting, and since it was a media case, a crowd comes to his execution, in front of a wall in the cemetery. José finally dies lying in front of that wall after receiving the blasts from the firing rifles.