At the end of the Spanish civil war, Fando, a boy of about ten, tries to make sense of war and his father's arrest. His mother is religious, sympathetic to the Fascists; his father is accused of being a Red. Fando discovers that his mother may have aided in his father's arrest. Sometimes we witness Fando imagining explanations for what's going on; sometimes we see him at play, alone or with his friend Thérèse. Oedipal fantasies and a lad's natural curiosity about sex and death mix with his search for his mother's nature and his father's fate. Will Fando survive the search?
Besides the cow mentioned above and the beetle mentioned below, a boy bites the head off of a lizard (skink?). The body and head are never shown and the blood on his face looks fake.
A cow is slaughtered on screen by having its throat coat, and a woman bathes in the pouring blood and then sews a man into the cow’s body. Very, very graphic and very real.
A small hole is shaved in the back of a man's head as part of cupping therapy, and small nicks are made with the blade so that his blood is part of the therapy.