ACT 1 – It is a time of war. The film opens on a sweeping, peaceful pastoral vista. We are at the edge of a small farm town, children are playing in a field. As we pan across the field, a bird comes into view. The camera follows the bird as it joins a flock. We follow their movement as they dance about the sky. As we follow them up towards the clouds a squadron of bomber planes takes their place in the sky. The film begins to change texturally and tonally. Bombs begin exploding across the landscape. Panning down we see tanks cresting the hilly streets of a small town, their guns pom-pomming. Soldiers run to and fro, firing into the fray. Villagers, some children, are fleeing. We hear a steady whistle growing ever louder above the other explosions and gunfire. The screen is filled by a great explosion, dirt and debris fly everywhere. As the dust begins to clear the sound of the fighting diminishes, the camera, panning slowly, rests on a small body lying motionless in the debris. Pushing closer we see the body begins to glow a bright white as the spirit still in its earthly form begins to climb out of the child’s body like it is climbing out of a hole. From this glowing form the texture and tone of the film begin to change again and whiten. The child spirit looks around and up then begins to rise. The camera follows the rising spirit and in the periphery we can see similar spirits, soldiers, children, villagers similarly rising. As we begin to travel through cloud layers, we see that the clouds are populated with these spirits. The child spirit we are following arrives on a cloud where other child spirits are playing. They rush to greet him and all run off together.
Act 2- We explore Cloud life. We see that the clouds are alive with the spirits of the dead. Husbands and wives greet and embrace. Couples hold hands. Children run to the arms of their parents. Dogs and cats scamper and chase. The children play games in the clouds, running and hiding from one another. Our hero child breaks away from the games and goes to the edge of the cloud. He leans down and pears over the edge. Below he sees a flock of birds. A bird breaks away from the flock and flies up toward him. His face brightens and he is obviously moved by this bird. As the bird rejoins his flock, the boy’s face begins to fall and we can tell he is unhappy. A girl spirit joins him at the edge of the cloud. She puts a hand on his shoulder, he looks up and she smiles. He returns the smile with a wan smile of his own. She returns to the group and he follows, stopping to glance back over his shoulder at the vanishing flock.
Act 3 –The children are gathered at the edge of a cloud. One stands, gazing over the edge. He seems to be longing for the physical world. He walks away from the group, turns and runs toward the edge of the cloud. He jumps in a full swan dive, arms wide spread with a look of joy on his face. The camera follows and as we pass the others, we see they are astonished. We follow the swan dive of this apparition out of a cloud and quickly his speed increases. He is plummeting towards the earth, arms outstretched face taught in a grimace of terror and delight. As we watch the child from our earthly perspective, still rocketing toward the earth, he violently and suddenly transforms into a colorful bird and pulls up from the dive, does several loops in the air, turns on his newly feathered back to gaze briefly towards the clouds then flies away. The camera follows this flight, a dance in air as this new earthly being joins a flock of birds. The camera pulls away to reveal the colorful, pastoral landscape and a dancing flock of birds moving gracefully across the sky.