Pierre Schoendoerffer's adaptation of his own book is a tale comprised of afterthoughts on the French involvement in the Indo-Chinese and Algerian wars, concentrating on the emotional life and moral questions of the individuals involved. Three officers on a naval destroyer making its last rounds of rescue and aid to fishing ships discover that their lives have, for the last 20 years, been powerfully influenced by the same man, an eccentric character named Willsdorff. Willsdorff is now a trawler captain, and as their boat approaches his, the three share memories of the myth of this hero, in the process divulging and exploring a sense of guilt, loss, and disillusionment.
“It is not a linear ‘story' film but, rather, a slowly assembled puzzle.... The film starts with scenes predominantly in a hot climate and moves by degrees towards the frozen sea wastes where Willsdorff and the other trawler captains do their fishing. The progressions and changes powerfully represent their lost youth and sullied integrity.... The naval rituals and the terrible power of the sea are brilliantly filmed by...Raoul Coutard....” --Michael Rabinger.
Schoendoerffer's Oscar-winning cinéma-vérité documentary, The Anderson Platoon (1966), concerned a group of American soldiers during the Vietnam War. Schoendoerffer himself has a military background, and spent several months as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam.