Set in the Tadjik village of Asht, this film draws on the Muslim notion that we are born with an angel on each shoulder, and that the angel on the right records the good that we do throughout our lives, and the angel on the left the bad. A man who has served ten years in a Moscow prison is summoned home upon release, to help settle the affairs of his dying mother, but it is soon borne into him that he must settle his own outstanding affairs with the villagers. The nine year old son he never knew about is entrusted by the dying mother with the family heirloom jewellery, tasked with only passing it on to his father if he becomes a good man.