José is a man romantically possessed and obsessed by his childhood in Granada during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in the spring of 1936.

Memories come flooding back to the mature José, of youthful sexual conquest, of Lorca's murder at the hands of Franco's agents, and his own early homosexual affairs.

José's entire life is colored by his obsessions with García Lorca, his unknown God, to whom the film is dedicated.

Listening to a taped recording of García Lorca's famous "Ode to Walt Whitman", he desires nothing more than to face the rest of his life in loneliness, although his recent lover, Miguel has returned to his bed and wants to continue their affair.

Hector Alterio also won the Best actor award at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 1977 for his performance as José.