Plot summary

At the turn of the 20th century, the young orphan Andreas is sent to live with his ruthless uncle on a farm in a remote valley; a valley that Andreas will only leave once in his life. Treated not as family but as a worker, Andreas endures a childhood without affection, full of brutality and hard labour. At the age of 18, Andreas has seen only hardship but finds the courage to leave his oppressor. Though partly crippled by his uncle, he has grown into a strong man and finds work as a woodsman. He works on the construction of an invention: the mountain ropeway. This invention marks the beginning of alpine tourism but is paid for with the many deaths of mountain workers. Andreas is no stranger to hard labour, and now that he is earning his own money, he buys himself a small plot of land with a cabin high up in the valley. He soon finds something he has never experienced before: love. Marie immediately becomes the light of his life, but his dream of a happy life together is soon shattered. Feeling despondent, Andreas enlists as a soldier in the German Wehrmacht. Coming face to face with death in the Russian Caucasus, he thinks only of Marie. Having survived the madness of the second World War, Andreas returns to the valley and to a changed world. With Marie always in his heart, Andreas accepts and cherishes the time he has left with serenity.