In the late 1960s and early '70s, the Mexican government endured a number of student riots, which it put down with overwhelming military force. Many were killed, and many more were injured. Only now is this long-suppressed history being allowed to be alluded to in Mexican movies. In this story, Lauro was a journalist covering the riots in 1971 when he is hit on the head and goes into a coma for almost twenty years. During that time, his children scathingly refer to him as "el bulto," (the baggage). However, despite the evident temptation to do so, they don't pull the plug on him, but visit his hospital room to bathe him, wash him, and cut his nails and hair on a regular basis. Somewhere near the end of that period, Lauro gradually awakens, and painfully undergoes the physical rehabilitation and, what is worse, an education in what has happened in the intervening years. When he went under, he was a leftist with liberal views. Now that he is awake, he wants everyone to obey him and takes a dim view of his wife's having had a boyfriend all these years. Needless to say, his old-line attitudes set him up for a rocky re-entry into his life.