Verfolgte Wege

After returning from a concentration camp, Susanne finds a traumatized ex-soldier living in her apartment in bombed out Berlin. Together the two try to move past their experiences during WWII.

Ken, a WWII GI, returns home after he's paralyzed in battle. Residing in the paraplegic ward of a veteran's hospital and embittered by his condition, he refuses to see his fiancée and sinks into a solitary world of hatred and hostility. Head physician, Dr. Brock cajoles the withdrawn Ken into the life of the ward, where fellow patients Norm, Leo and Angel begin to pull him out of his spiritual dilemma.

Intercutting dramatic vignettes with newsreel footage, the story follows the characters from an infantry squad as they make their way from Sicily to Germany during the end of World War II.

Tensions rise when a U.S. military base is built in a small village in post-war Germany.

The residents of Ho Chi Minh City face modernization amid widespread poverty. A retired American Marine arrives on a search for his daughter, whom he abandoned at the end of the Vietnam War. Elsewhere, a cyclo driver falls for a troubled prostitute and schemes to raise money so he can spend time with her. Additionally, a young women begins harvesting lotuses for a writer suffering from leprosy, and a child trinket seller loses his traveling case.