The Woman with the Knife

Suggested by Mama Watta, a legendary water goddess who seduces men into captivity, the film depicts the symbolic encounter of a man and a woman one night on the beach. The two share dreams on the sand but with daylight comes disorientation and death.

French colonists in Africa, several months behind in the news, find themselves at war with their German neighbors. Deciding that they must do their proper duty and fight the Germans, they promptly conscript the local native population. Issuing them boots and rifles, the French attempt to make "proper" soldiers out of the Africans. A young, idealistic French geographer seems to be the only rational person in the town, and he takes over control of the "war" after several bungles on the part of the others.