A doctor on a French military base in Afghanistan, Nadia, in her thirties, works for the coalition of major Western powers. When she is sent on a mission to a village in a strategic location, her convoy falls into an ambush. Nadia and a soldier of Tajik origin are captured by a group of Taliban led by Abdullah, a Pakistani. The soldier is beheaded, while Nadia is miraculously released thanks to the intervention of a Pashtun leader, Hassan Walli, whom she had met ten years earlier in Paris. Using this friendship, Colonel Leroy of the DGSE asks the young woman to get closer to Hassan, who is seen as a moderate opposed to Al-Qaeda…
Acting
Marie-Josée Croze's exhausted eyes carry the whole film.
Direction
Courtois treats Afghanistan as a moral maze, not action setpiece.
Director
Miguel Courtois
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released months before the 2012 French withdrawal, the film's cynicism about 'hearts and minds' now reads as prescient rather than pessimistic.
The Afghan village scenes were shot in Morocco; the real Kabul-set production was abandoned after a Taliban attack on a nearby hotel killed several filmmakers.
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