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?
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.
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.
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.