In 1911, a willful and determined man from peasant stock named Charles Saganne (Gérard Depardieu) enlists in the military and is assigned to the Sahara Desert under the aristocratic Colonel Dubreuilh (Philippe Noiret). Saganne attracts the attentions of Madeleine (Sophie Marceau), the daughter of the regional administrator. In the Sahara, Saganne earns the respect of the Arabs, including Amajan, an independent warrior. After several campaigns, Saganne travels to Paris on a diplomatic mission. After having an affair with a journalist in Paris, Saganne returns to Africa, where he leads a valliant defense against Sultan Omar. He is awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, and marries Madeleine. The onset of World War I puts his success and happiness at risk.
Chanteraide est l'une des « oreilles d'or » de la Marine nationale, les spécialistes de la guerre acoustique. Son rôle à bord des sous-marins est essentiel. Pourtant il commet une erreur d'analyse qui manque de coûter la vie à tout l'équipage. En cherchant à la réparer, il se retrouve pris dans un conflit majeur auquel il pourrait bien être la réponse : de ses qualités professionnelles dépend l'ultime espoir de paix.
The film starts out at the Farnborough Airshow where a demo Mirage 2000-10 is stolen. French Air Force pilots Captain Antoine "Walk'n" Marchelli (Benoît Magimel) and Captain Sébastien "Fahrenheit" Vallois (Clovis Cornillac) are instructed to escort it back. When the rogue pilot attempts to shoot at Vallois, Marchelli is forced to destroy the stolen Mirage.
In Nazi-occupied France, Lucille Angellier and her domineering mother-in-law await news of her husband. A regiment of German soldiers arrives, and promptly moves into the homes of the villagers. Lucille tries to ignore Bruno, the German commander coopting her house, but he soon infatuates her.
It is 1940. When the movie begins, film star Viviane Denvert sits in the audience of a premiere of her new movie and notices a man who keeps staring at her. She is disturbed, and when the film is over and the audience has finished praising her, she rushes home, discovering that she is pursued by that same man. He chases her into her apartment.
Madame Emery and her beautiful 17-year-old daughter Geneviève (Deneuve) sell umbrellas at their tiny (and financially struggling) boutique in the coastal town of Cherbourg in Normandy, France, in the late 1950s. Guy (Castelnuovo), is a handsome young auto mechanic who lives with, and cares for, his sickly aunt, godmother Elise. Guy and Geneviève are deeply in love; they want to get married, and they want to name their first child "Francoise". Madeleine (Ellen Farner) is the quiet, shy, dedicated young caregiver who looks after Guy's aunt; Madeleine also has feelings for Guy, but has not expressed this. Suddenly Guy is drafted and must leave to become a soldier in the Algerian War. The night before Guy leaves, he and Geneviève pledge their undying love. Then they make love (apparently for the first time) and the very next day, Guy leaves.
A drifter named Hogan spots and saves a naked woman from being gang-raped by several bandits whom he shoots and kills. He later learns that the woman, Sara, is a nun working with a group of Mexican revolutionaries who are fighting the French. When Sara requests that Hogan take her to a Mexican camp, he agrees because he had previously arranged to help the Mexican revolutionaries attack the French garrison in exchange for a portion of the garrison's strongbox if they are successful.
During the winter of 1943-44, Julien Quentin, a student at a Carmelite boarding school in occupied France, is returning to school from vacation. He acts tough to the students at the school, but he is actually a pampered mother's boy who still wets his bed. Saddened to be returning to the tedium of boarding school, Julien's classes seem uneventful until Père Jean, the headmaster, introduces three new pupils. One of them, Jean Bonnet, is the same age as Julien. Like the other students, Julien at first despises Bonnet, a socially awkward boy with a talent for arithmetic and playing the piano.
À l'issue de la Seconde Guerre mondiale sur le front de l'Ouest, les manifestations pour l'indépendance de l'Algérie deviennent de plus en plus fréquentes en Algérie jusqu'aux massacres de Sétif, Guelma et Kherrata, dans le Constantinois, à partir du 8 mai 1945. Les scènes finales évoquent le massacre du 17 octobre 1961 à Paris.
Kabul-based French journalist Elsa Casanova (Diane Kruger) writes an article about warlord Zaief (Raz Degan) and names him "the butcher of Kabul". Her informer Maina (Morjana Alaoui) warns her that Zaief is out for vengeance. Before she returns to Zaief, she bids farewell because she reckons to die by an honour killing. Elsa tries to hold her back but fails. Her friend Amen (Mehdi Nebbou) urges Elsa to leave the country, yet, agrees to help her try save Maina. Zaief ambushes and captures Elsa and Amen. Amen asks Elsa to show no fear in front of Zaief. Still, she breaks down when their friend Salemani (Greg Fromentin) gets cruelly murdered in her presence.
The movie starts off with a man, named Schlomo (Lionel Abelanski), running crazily through a forest, with his voice playing in the background, saying that he has seen the horror of the Nazis in a nearby town, and he must tell the others. Once he gets into town, he informs the rabbi, and together they run through the town and once they have got enough people together, they hold a town meeting. At first, many of the men do not believe the horrors they are being told, and many criticize Schlomo, for he is the town lunatic, and who could possibly believe him? But the rabbi believes him, and then they try to tackle the problem of the coming terrors. Amidst the pondering and the arguing, Schlomo suggests that they build a train, so they can escape by deporting themselves. Some of their members pretend to be Nazis in order to ostensibly transport them to a concentration camp, when in reality, they are going to Palestine via Russia. Thus the Train of Life is born.
French General Birabeau has been sent to Morocco to root out and destroy the Riffs, a band of Arab rebels, who threaten the safety of the French outpost in the Moroccan desert. Their dashing, daredevil leader is the mysterious "Red Shadow". Margot Bonvalet, a lovely, sassy French girl, is soon to be married at the fort to Birabeau's right-hand man, Captain Fontaine. Birabeau's son Pierre, in reality the Red Shadow, loves Margot, but pretends to be a milksop to preserve his secret identity. Margot tells Pierre that she secretly yearns to be swept into the arms of some bold, dashing sheik, perhaps even the Red Shadow himself. Pierre, as the Red Shadow, kidnaps Margot and declares his love for her.
Mettant en perspective pointilliste l'histoire collective de haine recuite entre peuples, plus particulièrement le génocide arménien en 1915 et l'exil qui a suivi, mais aussi la situation actuelle qui forme des fantômes même pour les destins individuels des générations contemporaines et vivant ailleurs par le truchement d'une famille spécialiste de l'image. Cette histoire est à plusieurs tiroirs et vignettes, notamment pour montrer la difficulté de reconstituer une mémoire que l'on n'a pas pu imposer et d'intégrer la complexité d'une situation par différents points de vue.
After capturing an important Rif prisoner in an undercover operation, Sergeant Mike Kincaid (Lancaster) is imprisoned himself for striking a lieutenant (Stephen Bekassy) who beats a French woman (Mari Blanchard) with his riding crop for preferring Kincaid to him. Kincaid has a longstanding rivalry with the lieutenant, but the lieutenant is now in command of the company holding the city of Tarfa while the regiment is away. As the ranking officer, the lieutenant uses Kincaid's striking of him to get his revenge.