After witnessing the arrest of her father for publishing "subversive" material against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, Valentina escapes taking a sack of gold coins with her in order to hand it over to rebel Francisco I. Madero, who is in San Antonio, Texas. That is how Valentina begins a long journey as a member of a traveling circus, where she finds love next to Victor, who, fascinated by the cinematographer, films everything that occurs before his eyes, in times of great political turbulence.
A woman who is about to die calls the town's priest and hands him a scapulary, saying that she knows of its great powers. Anybody who does not believe in them will end up dead.
On the thinnest of pretexts, a horde of homeless people descend on the apartments of two members of the comfortable middle class and proceed to loot and vandalize both homes, leaving the next morning with many of the belongings they found there, as well as one of the residents who has opted to join them. This political allegory is based on two plays by the Chilean playwright Egon Wolff.
In the 1950s, a pretty magician's apprentice travels to Mexico to escape her boyfriend, a wealthy politician, and to find a Mayan shaman who will teach her the ancient principles of magic.
