Aferim!

Costandin, an aging constable, sets out with his son Ioniță and the deputy to locate Carfin, a Roma slave. They traverse a patchwork landscape of monasteries, travelers marked by hajduk violence, and the margins of society that survive under harsh power. The journey establishes the moral tension that will define the case.

To gain a lead, Costandin and his companions bribe a constable in a neighboring county for information. The move reveals a world where corruption and leverage shape outcomes more than law alone. The search tightens as a result.

The search culminates at the home of a peasant craftsman, where Carfin is found and Țintiric is seized as another runaway slave. Carfin speaks with quiet dignity about the forces that pushed him to flee. The moment marks a blunt collision between mercy and the letter of the law.

Carfin recounts that his flight was prompted by his attraction to Sultana, the boyar's wife, and the hardships he faced on the journey home. He begs the lawmen to take him as their slave rather than see him harmed. The tale deepens the film's meditation on power, cruelty and dignity.

Costandin remains pragmatic, warning that mercy will likely amount to a harsh beating rather than mercy. He speaks of the brutal reality of the world they inhabit and the limits of the law. The exchange sets up the moral dilemma that follows.

The quartet resolves to sell Țintiric to a nobleman at a market, a decision taken despite the boy's protests and personal cost to him. The act underscores a society that trades human beings for status and power. The group carries the weight of this choice into the night.

That night they lodge at an inn, and Costandin reflects on a long memory from his past service under Tudor Vladimirescu. The mood grows heavier as personal survival blends with complicity in a harsh system. Ioniță is sent to sleep with a prostitute, mirroring the compromises of their world.

Ioniță privately suggests releasing Carfin, seeing some mercy in the act. Costandin rejects the idea, insisting on adherence to the letter of the law and warning of consequences. The exchange sharpens the film's central conflict between empathy and duty.

The next day they arrive at the boyar Iordache's residence, where Costandin learns of the abuse Sultana has suffered. The account widens the film's critique of power dynamics and cruelty in domestic life. The journey becomes a meditation on who enforces justice and who bears its scars.

Costandin, after receiving his pay, pleads for leniency toward Carfin, a plea bluntly denied by the boyar. The denial seals the trajectory toward a brutal, public punishment. The moment cements Costandin's sense that mercy has a narrow window in a rigged system.

Carfin is castrated and paraded around town, a cruel spectacle that culminates in taunts aimed at Sultana. The act becomes a bitter turning point that exposes the cost of power without mercy. The four men depart the scene weighed down by the violence they've witnessed.

As they leave, Costandin voices sorrow for a world unwilling or unable to change, while hinting that Ioniță's future might lie along a military path that offers some purpose. The moment frames survival as compromise, and the film closes on the heavy realisation that the wheel of power grinds on. The journey has revealed a tapestry of life on the margins, where trust is scarce and mercy rarer still.