During World War I, Serbia loses two-thirds of the male population.
The women stay back to start a new life the best they can, but this also means there are
many small towns with few or no men at all.
Sisters Ognjenka and Boginja live in Pokrp, which only has one old man left, and as kids,
they liked to play around the pond next to the cemetery.
Nowadays, Boginja likes to bathe in that pond, but Ognjenka doesn't approve because legend
says the pond is cursed.
Their great-grandmother cried out that pound when her husband didn't come home from war,
and the tears made it so salty that even starfish can live in it.
After crying for seven days and seven nights, the great-grandmother thought it was enough
and swore from that day on her heart would be tough like stone.
Since crying was all she knew to do, she became the best wailer on the mountain.
"Wailers" are women hired to cry at funerals, and from generation to generation, this became
the family business, meaning the sisters are wailers too.
In this village, if a boy's as tall as a rifle, he's ready for war.
As more wars happened and years passed, no men left back equals no customers, so wailers'
tears are slowly becoming worthless.
Only two men ever came back to Pokrp, and they also died quickly.
The first was crushed by a gravestone, if by accident or because his wife killed him
for cheating, nobody knows.
The second man knew he couldn't defend a whole village of women by himself and set up a minefield
in the vineyard.
He never marked down the position of the mines though, because he was afraid the enemy could
get their hands on that information and trusted his photographic memory.
In the end, his memory failed him and the man died from stepping on his own mines.
The minefield he left behind became a problem because the vineyard is the village's main
source of income.
The remaining women renamed the vineyard into "mineyard" and since then, they draw straws
to see who will be the next person to pick up the grapes since most of the time, such
chore ends up in tragedy.
One morning, the sisters are approached by Nada, who wants to hire their crying services
in advance because she's drawn the short straw and is going to the mineyard next.
Because she has to pay in advance though, she asks the sisters to give her a demonstration
of their wailing performance.
Since their client is still alive, Ognjenka has trouble acting well, thus she tries to
think of sad things to make herself cry.
She remembers the day their friend Sanja got married, but she didn't even get to kiss her
husband before he was dragged away to war and since then she's been mute.
This still doesn't help her cry though, so Boginja tries to help by reminding her that
she'll be twenty-two next autumn and yet she's never found love, in fact, considering the
lack of men, she probably never will.
Ognjenka reminds her sister the same will happen to her, and this gets the sisters crying
properly.
Hearing about the sad state of their lives, Nada decides to kiss Boginja, explaining that
unlike the sisters, she did kiss a man once.
This man turns out to be Grampa Bisa, the only guy left in the village.
The sisters find this disgusting, but Nada explains she'd rather have an old guy than
die without having her first time.
Grampa Bisa is incredibly old and can barely move, nobody even thought of him as a man
until all the others died and the women became desperate.
He's growing sicker by the day, but at his old age, there isn't much the village's witch
can do to keep him with them for longer.
Later in the evening, Nada and the sisters go to the local bar where women get together
to drink and drown their sorrows, which is harder than it looks because Ratija's band
only plays funeral songs, even if they're in a slightly faster tempo.
Because Nada is sure she doesn't have much time left, she asks the bartender to drop
the cheap drinks and serve "spider brandy" instead, that way she can go out with a bang.
The bartender grants the request and soon every woman in the bar is having hallucinations
of the dead men in their lives.
Boginja fights with Ratija over a handsome smoking man that, unlike the others, looks
alive, while Ognjenka cries because not even an illusion will have her before she also
gets to see a healthy man as she passes out.
In the morning, Sanja enters the mineyard and before dying in an explosion, she tells
the sisters that she's paid for them to have some fun time with Grampa Bisa.
Sometime later, the sisters go to Bisa's hut, but neither of them wants to go first.
Boginja pushes Ognjenka onto the bed, but as soon as Bisa touches her, Ognjenka freaks
out and yells, which kills Bisa with a heart attack.
For having killed the only man left in the village, the sisters are tied to a stake to
be burned.
Desperate to get out of this one, Boginja tells everyone she could bring back another
better man to make up for Bisa, so the villagers decide to give them a chance.
The sisters have three days to come back with a man or the witch will make the soul of their
great-grandmother rot in a place worse than hell.
The siblings ride out of town in search of a man, but it's harder than it looks.
The first one they encounter belongs to another female-only town, and those women scare the
sisters away as soon as they see them come closer to their guy.
The second man they find is actually a woman pretending to be a guy in order to join the
army so men can stay back and help repopulate.
Eventually, the sisters make it to the city, where they're shocked to see that the men
from their hallucinations are there.
Ognjenka's guy is Dragoljub, a circus performer known as the "man of steel" whose main act
is launching himself from a cannon.
On the other hand, Boginja's man is Arsa, a smooth charleston singer.
Ognjenka and Dragoljub get a crush as soon as they look each other in the eye, and Dragoljub
invites her to fly with him.
Usually this is something he sells to any woman willing to pay, but all the girls that
are at first screaming for his attention soon move to Arsa when they hear him sing.
The path opens for Ognjenka to join Dragoljub in the cannon, and they fly away together
until they fall into a nearby lake.
Dragoljub almost drowns, but Ognjenka drags him out of the water and gives him mouth-to-mouth.
Once Dragoljub is better, he comments on how impressed he is by Ognjenka and asks her to
be his assistant.
Meanwhile, Arsa finds himself surrounded by too many women, so to get them off his back,
he throws a flower and promises that whoever catches it will be his queen.
The women rush to grab the flower that has fallen in the lake as they push each other
in the way, and Boginja gets to grab it first, hiding it in her mouth to avoid anyone stealing
it from her.
However this is only a trick to give Arsa time to return to his car in order to escape,
although he does stop to pick up his friend Dragoljub first, who brings Ognjenka with
him.
The crazy fangirls try to stop the car from leaving and Boginja jumps against the door
to show she has the flower; between that and Ognjenka saying that's her sister, Arsa has
no choice but to allow Boginja in the car as well.
As the four of them travel together, it's clear that Ognjenka and Dragoljub are really
into each other, but Arsa doesn't appreciate Boginja's advances.
After a few miles, the girls ask for the car to stop so they can change out of their wet
dresses, and seeing them wearing new salacious clothing makes Arsa more receptive to their
charms.
Ognjenka and Dragoljub get in their car but the mood is ruined by Ognjenka's hair getting
stuck in the door.
She tries to convince Dragoljub not to take them back to Pokrp, but Dragoljub refuses
because he's eager to see a town full of women desperate for a guy.
Meanwhile, Arsa and Boginja make out against some rocks, and Boginja convinces him of ditching
Dragoljub and escape to Belgrade, the capital, to find fame together.
The group gets back on the road and almost run over a funeral procession.
As the people begin complaining about the interruption, Boginja drags Arsa with him
to steal the hearse in order to escape; this means they accidentally steal the body of
the deceased as well.
On their way to Belgrade, the couple leaves the car on automatic, causing the body to
fall off the vehicle before they get busy in the back seat.
When they finally make it to the city, they celebrate by dancing in the middle of it.
In the meantime, Ognjenka and Dragoljub continue to make their way to Pokrp, but at least Ognjenka
convinces Dragoljub to tell her some stories about Belgrade.
The city life is glamorous, and they're about to open a tower called Palace Albania which
will be so tall that it'll touch the clouds.
Dragoljub hopes someday he can do his show on top of it, perhaps jumping from the roof,
although Ognjenka thinks that's too dangerous.
Ognjenka begins thinking about trying to convince Dragoljub to go to Belgrade again, but she's
overwhelmed by guilt for not keeping up her promise to her people and the memory of her
great-grandmother, so they stick to their plan to go to Pokrp.
Speaking of Pokrp, the women are drawing straws again and this time Sanja is the loser, but
their chore is interrupted by the arrival of Ognjenka and Dragoljub.
The women at first think he's another illusion, but as soon as they realize the man is real,
they're all over him except for a very wary Sanja.
Dragoljub loves the attention, but Ognjenka can't help getting jealous.
Later, they take advantage of Dragoljub's circus training to collect the grapes safely.
Dragoljub rides a bicycle on some ropes across the mineyard while Ognjenka is tied to him,
picking up the fruit without having to touch the ground.
In the evening, everyone celebrates by making wine the traditional way, which is by stomping
all over the grapes in a big bucket, and Dragoljub is happy to join the party while Sanja watches
him from afar.
Meanwhile, the witch keeps her promise and allows the soul of the sisters' great-grandmother
to rest in peace, which puts Ognjenka's mind at ease.
Now that the guilt is gone, she begins feeling rather lonely and frustrated because everyone
got what they wanted except for her, but her thoughts are suddenly interrupted by Boginja,
who has come back to help.
After telling a sleepy Arsa not to leave the car, the sisters go to the bar to get Dragoljub
back.
They find him having fun and Sanja getting closer to kiss him, so a jealous Ognjenka
hits Dragoljub in the groin before announcing to everyone that he's hers and that they're
taking him back to Belgrade.
However the women laugh at the sisters and continue to celebrate without letting them
go.
Ognjenka tries to convince Dragoljub they need to go while everyone's drunk and, after
declaring her love for him, she kisses him.
Seeing this makes Sanja speak again, requesting the kiss that she has been waiting for since
her wedding day was ruined.
Dragoljub tries to explain he can only kiss Ognjenka, but Sanja ignores him and kisses
him anyway.
At that moment, Arsa shows up at the bar, and now it's Boginja's turn to get jealous
as all the women go after him.
Dragoljub gets annoyed too because the attention isn't only on him anymore.
Arsa wastes no time in having some spider brandy before asking the band to play something
in order for him to dance with Boginja on top of the table.
However Ratija tries to cut in and dance with Arsa as well, which begins a fight between
her and Boginja.
Their feet start to bleed when they step on the glasses on the table, and Dragoljub gets
so tired of this dumb display that he turns the table over to make it stop.
Another argument starts, this time between the two men, and while trying to show off
his muscles, Dragoljub ends up falling on the floor.
The women remind them that the only way to prove who is the better man is through their
bed skills, and when Dragoljub accepts, Ognjenka throws a glass at his head.
Boginja's very angry to see how the women take away the men to be used, but she feels
she can't do much about it.
Ognjenka however, cuts to the front of the line to take the first turn with Arsa.
She's tense and reluctant, showing how scared she is of this and the fact she's only doing
it because she feels she has to, so Arsa is a gentleman and refuses to touch her.
After Ognjenka leaves, Ratija comes to have her turn too, but Arsa turns her down as well
and leaves the room.
Meanwhile, the witch and the town elder argue over how to proceed while Dragoljub sleeps.
In the morning, while Boginja is taking the glass shards off her feet by the pond, Ognjenka
finds her and tells her how respectful Arsa had been.
Back in town, Dragoljub wakes up to find Sanja hovering above him, telling him she knows
he isn't really a pig and he just likes to play macho because of his pride.
Dragoljub is the kind of man that sticks to one woman and Sanja knows she isn't the chosen
one, but she still takes another kiss to make up for her unfair destiny before sending him
after his real love.
As the sisters leave for Belgrade in the car, Dragoljub tries to join them, but they just
hit him with the vehicle for being a pig.
Arsa leaves his room too and notices all the women waiting for him, but by trying to escape
from them, he accidentally enters the mineyard.
Boginja stops the car when she sees what's going on and tells Ognjenka not to cry and
to go to Belgrade before she enters the mineyard as well.
Arsa and Boginja begin kissing and dancing as mines explode around them, and eventually,
the couple is killed by the fire.
Ognjenka leaves for Belgrade while she remembers how she told her sister not to bathe in the
pond because of its curse.
When she makes it to the city, Ognjenka finds Dragoljub on top of the now open Palace Albana,
and she joins the party on the roof to see if he can pull the jump off.