“Beauty will be declared an insult, an intellect, a provocation, a love.” Literally breaking from behind the desk of the French college, a young man of 17, a young aristocrat, the son of a colonel, goes to Spain to fight against the Communists. The young man is proud and cannot hide his joy. He does not yet feel the contradictions of war, he has no doubts.
Do you like the French? the commander asked.
- Yes, very.
The French support the Reds.
The young man’s name is Raphael (Kolen), he falls under the command of his father’s friend, Colonel Masagual, whose task is to prepare the boy before being sent to the front, to train him in the firing squad. “To temper, one week of such work is enough for you,” they say. The schedule is approximately as follows: rise at five, mass at six, breakfast, shooting, lunch, shooting, dinner, brothel.
The idealistic ideas of the young aristocrat about war as a noble occupation come across a picture of a very different kind. Colonel Masaguel (magnificently shown by actor Jean-Louis Trentignan) meets his new ward in his room, doing the evening toilet, simultaneously conducting a dialogue with his lover and not embarrassed by the scenes of jealousy between them. Probably, in the eyes of the young man, such behavior seems to discredit the honor of the uniform, but the colonel knows that the uniform has no honor. They will kill children if necessary. "This is normal," explains the officer assigned to Raphael, "the blood has neither sex nor age," "no rank." As the colonel notes, “We are dying, because we are dying.” We respect because ...And then nothing follows!.
In this war, a dignified death without torture is a royal gift. This gift Colonel Masaguel awards a priest who shot soldiers from the cathedral. The conduct of this cure, his candour, his courage to die free, inspire the colonel with great respect, emphasizing, however, his own weakness, baseness and hypocrisy of his entourage. Sensual pleasures and pleasures - a lover in a heated bed, delicious food, drugs - all that Masaguel sold his freedom for and that was supposed to give his life a taste cannot silence the painful realization of the meaninglessness of his life and the lives of all those involved in the war. "Only a civil war is not stupid," teaches Colonel Raphael. You can kill people you've always known. Killing someone you've always hated, killing even a family member you've always dreamed of getting rid of, makes at least some sense compared to killing a person you see for the first (and last) time.
These shootings are called fiestas, holidays, entertainment for aristocrats - mostly young ladies - who came to watch over a glass as their enemies are killed. And the young man copes with his first enemy, standing against the wall and waiting for death. It copes with the second - after a fair dose of cognac, which is poured into it. But the third — when you have to kill a fifteen-year-old girl — can not cope, instead he lets her out. I had no choice! — he shouts to the colonel. This is probably the only thing in the whole movie that inspires hope. If for this young soldier, under the conditions of the army, the system of subordination and punishment, the death of an innocent girl cannot be a choice, and saving a life becomes a decision, then all is not lost. Raphael is immediately sent to the front, but there he will deal at least with an armed enemy, the fiesta for him is over.