In 1991, Maksymilian "Max" Paradys and Albert Starski volunteer themselves for the first human hibernation experiment, created by professor Wiktor Kuppelweiser.
She finds the oldest living woman Julia Novack, who tells Lamia that the old world with two sexes should be restored.
They discover the nest of "decadency" - one of the anarchist, "hippie" women's groups, who do not wish to be part of the oppressive regime, playing loud music, and some engaging in lesbian relations.
They mistake Max and Albert for government spies and, in the meantime, the pursuing regime forces attack, and subsequent chaos provides the men with an opportunity to escape.
During their escape, the men stumble upon Lamia, who provides them with a way to see the outside - a periscope - and reveals that they live deep underground in expanded old mines.
The periscope shows a dark, rocky landscape above ground, and sensors indicate high levels of "Kuppelweiser radiation", a side effect of the M bomb.
The chief surgeon, Dr Yanda, an old lady, is revealed to be Max's daughter, who now delights in taking revenge for his abandonment of his wife and child in favor of hibernation for profit.
In the periscope room Lamia tells the guards she will blast the whole block if they do not give her the code activating a capsule reaching the surface, while Max and Albert find and change into protective suits.
They all go through the hole and find themselves on a beach, the periscope area surrounded by a small tent-like structure with the barren landscape panorama painted on the inside of the canvas.
While eating in the garden, they are found by Emma; armed with a harpoon, she demands their surrender, but she faints from lack of oxygen.
'Her' Excellency tells the men that after the war, when the League of Women took power, the few boys remaining were naturalized into girls, but he was hidden by his mother.
The three make a deal: Max and Albert will not compromise 'Her' Excellency's true identity, but they will stay in his home with Lamia and Emma.
Later, Max and Albert, disguised as laboratory workers, add male gametes to flasks in the incubation centre.
The barren, hostile landscape of the supposed outside world (as seen via the periscope) is an allusion to the Communist era propaganda about the "Capitalist West" with its crime, decadence and poverty, and the scene where the heroes cut through the canvas to discover an entirely different world in many aspects "better" than the one they came from reflects the culture shock of many visitors from Communist Poland when experiencing the Western European countries for the first time.
Some sections of this kind were left out from the version shown in Polish theaters by the government censors,[citation needed] but many passed through.
[2] However, this assessment by the audience was considered to be a surprise as it disagreed with the historical rankings of Polish movies by the professional film critics.