Based on a novel by the well-known Algerian writer Mouloud Mammeri, this is a chronicle of an Algerian village during the war of liberation. A doctor renounces his comfortable life in the capital to return to the mountains where he was born; Thala, his village, is engaged in war. The village is split into two camps: those in favor of the Algerian guerillas and those who collaborate with the French. The peasants, marginalized by their poverty and immersed in everyday occupations, gradually emerge from passivity to become involved in the intricacies of the war. Shot with the look of a neo-western, the film submerges its audience in an atmosphere of terror and repression.