Summer 1959: A lieutenant arrives at his station deep in Kabyle, where he’s faced with a somewhat rag-tag, potentially rogue platoon – comrades who’ve already seen and done more than enough. The first somewhat bigger combat film on the Algerian War since the mid to late 70s, which shows and discusses things that even the more courageous works from the militant fringe, like René Vautier’s Avoir vingt ans dans les Aurès (1972), often only dared to hint at: the use of napalm, the casual attitude to mass killings, etc. Things get so vile that some French soldiers start to see themselves in a most disturbing light: as being equal to the Nazis in their disdain for human life. A pretty amazing work that wasn’t met with too much interest when it opened in France, quite possibly due to its attitude: this is a let’s-get-our-hands-dirty piece of cinema.
