West coast of Norway. Brand, a middle-aged man in black clothes and a satchel over his shoulders, makes his way through the mountains to the west to the fjord, where his native village lies. Brand is held by fellow travelers - a peasant with his son. They prove that the direct path through the mountains is deadly, you need to go around! But Brand does not want to listen to them. He shames the peasant for cowardice - he has a daughter at death, she is waiting for him, and his father hesitates, choosing a circle road. What would he give for his daughter to die peacefully? 200 thalers? All property? What about life? If he does not agree to give his life, all other victims do not count. All or nothing! Such is the ideal rejected by compatriots mired in compromises!
Brand breaks out of the hands of a peasant, and goes through the mountains. As if by magic, the clouds disperse, and Brand sees the young lovers - they are also in a hurry to the fjord. Recently met Agnes and artist Einar decided to unite their lives, they enjoy love, music, art, chatting with friends. Their enthusiasm for the oncoming sympathy does not cause. In his opinion, life in Norway is not so good. Passivity and cowardice soar everywhere. People have lost the integrity of nature, their God now looks like a bald old man with glasses, condescendingly looking at laziness, lies and opportunism. Brand, a theologian by training, believes in another God - young and energetic, punishing for lack of will. The main thing for him is the formation of a new person, a strong and strong-willed person who rejects deals with his conscience.
Einar finally recognizes in Brand a schoolmate. The straightforwardness and fervor of his reasoning are repulsive - in Brand's theories there is no place for simple-hearted joy or mercy, on the contrary, he denounces them as a relaxing person. They met on different paths - they will see later on the shore of the fjord, from where they will continue on the boat.
Not far from the village of Branda, another meeting awaits - with the crazy Gerd, a girl who is haunted by the obsessive idea of a terrible hawk lying in wait for her everywhere; she finds salvation from him only in the mountains on the glacier - in a place that she calls the “snow church”. Gerd does not like the village below: there, according to her, "it is stuffy and crowded." After parting with her, Brand summarizes the road experience: for a new person he will have to fight with three “trolls” (monsters) - stupidity (rolled up routine of life), frivolity (thoughtless enjoyment) and nonsense (complete break with people and mind).
After many years of absence, everything in the village seems Brandu small. Residents he is in trouble: in the village - hunger. The local administrator (Vogt) distributes products to the needy. Approaching the audience, Brand, as always, expresses an extraordinary opinion: the position of the starving is not so bad - they have to fight for survival, and not the idle spirit of death. The villagers almost beat him for mocking their misfortune, but Brand proves that he has a moral right to treat others downward - he only volunteers to help a dying man who could not stand the sight of his hungry children and killed his youngest son in a fit of insanity, and then, realizing that he had done, tried to lay hands on himself and now lies dying in his house on the other side of the fjord. Nobody risks getting there - a storm is raging in the fjord. To help Brand, only Agnes dares to cross the river. She is struck by the strength of his character, and she, contrary to Einar's calls to return to him, or at least to her parents, decides to share fate with Brand. Locals, also convinced of the strength of his spirit, ask Brand to become their priest.
But Brand makes very high demands on them. His favorite motto is “all or nothing” is as uncompromising as the famous Latin proverb: “May peace perish, but justice will prevail.” The new priest even convicts his old mother of her mother - for her prudence and money-grubbing. He refuses her communion until she repents and gives out to the poor her acquired and beloved property. Being at death, the mother sends for her son several times: she asks him to come, promising to give out half first, then nine-tenths of all that she owns. But Brand does not agree. He suffers, but cannot go against his convictions.
He is no less exacting to himself. The house under the rock, where they had lived with Agnes for three years, the sun rarely looks in, and their son is quietly withering. The doctor advises: in order to save Alpha, you must immediately move to another locality. There is no question of staying. And Brand is ready to leave. “Maybe other Brands shouldn’t be too strict?” - the doctor asks him. Brand and one of his parishioners remind of duty: people in the village now live by different, more honest rules, they do not believe the Vogt intriguer, who spread rumors that Brand will leave as soon as he receives his mother’s inheritance. People need a brand, and he, having made an unbearably difficult decision, forces Agnes to agree with him.
Alf is dead. Mount Agnes is immeasurable; she constantly feels the absence of her son. The only thing left for her is the things and toys of the child. A gypsy who suddenly burst into the pastoral home demands that Agnes share her wealth with her. And Brand orders to give things to Alpha - all to one! Once having seen the child Agnes and Brand, the insane Gerd said: “Alf is an idol!” Brand and his Agnes grief considers idolatry. In fact, do they not revel in their grief and find perverse pleasure in it? Agnes resigns herself to her husband’s will and gives back the last child’s cap hidden from her. Now she had nothing left but her husband. She finds no consolation in faith - God and them are too harsh with Brand, faith in him requires more and more victims, and the church below in the village is cramped.
Brand clings to a randomly dropped word. He will build a new, spacious and high church, worthy of a new man preached by him. Vogt impedes him in every way, he has his own plans for a more utilitarian property (“We’ll build a workhouse / in conjunction with a detention house, and an outbuilding for gatherings, meetings / and festivities, together with a madhouse”), and also a vogt against demolition of the old church, which considers a cultural monument. Upon learning that Brand is going to build on his own money, Vogt changes his mind: he praises Brand’s courage in every possible way, and now considers the old pimped church to be dangerous for visitors.
A few more years pass. A new church has been built, but by this time Agnes is no longer alive, and the ceremony of consecrating the church does not inspire Brand. When an important church official makes a speech with him about cooperation between the church and the state and promises him rewards and honors, Brand does not feel anything but disgust. He closes the building with a castle, and takes the congregation away to the mountains - on a campaign for a new ideal: from now on, the whole earthly world will be their temple! Ideals, however, even when they are precisely formulated (which Ibsen deliberately avoids in the poem) are always abstract, while their achievement is always concrete. On the second day of the campaign, Brand’s parishioners beat their feet, got tired, starved and despaired. Therefore, they easily let themselves be fooled by the Vogt, informing them that huge shoals of herring had entered their fjord. Former adherents of Brand instantly convince themselves that they have been deceived by them, and - quite logically - stone him. Well, Brand complains, these are changeable Norwegians - until recently they swore that they would help their Danes in the war with the threatening Prussia, but they shamefully deceived them (meaning the Danish-Prussian military conflict of 1864)!
Left alone in the mountains, Brand continues on his way. The invisible choir inspires him with the idea of the futility of human aspirations and the futility of a dispute with the Devil or with God ("you can resist, you can reconcile - / you are condemned, man!"). Brand yearns for Agnes and Alpha, and here fate presents him with another test. Brand is the vision of Agnes: she consoles him - there are no serious reasons for despair, everything is fine again, she is with him, Alf grew up and became a healthy young man, their small old church also stands in its place in the village. The trials that Brand went through, he only dreamed of in a terrible nightmare. It is enough to abandon the three words hated by her, Agnes, and the nightmare will be scattered (three words, Brand's motto is “all or nothing”). Brand stands the test, he will not betray either his ideals or his life and its suffering. If necessary, he is ready to repeat his path.
Instead of an answer from the fog where the vision had just been, piercing sounds: “The world does not need it - die now!”
Brand alone again. But the crazy Gerd finds him, she leads Brand into the "snow church". Here the grace of mercy and love finally descends upon the sufferer. But Gerd already saw on the top of the enemy - the hawk and shoots him. An avalanche is coming down. Brand, carried away by snow, has time to ask the universe the last question: is human will really as insignificant as a grain of sand on the powerful right hand of the Lord? Through the peals of thunder, Brand hears the Voice: “God, He is deus caritatis!” Deus caritatis means "Gracious God."
