War-torn Afghanistan becomes a metaphysical netherworld in this evocatively eerie genre bender. No-nonsense Captain Antarès Bonassieu and 12 French NATO soldiers patrol a badland of endless dust and rock in search of a Taliban warlord called “Sultan”. The unit is on high alert, relations with the villagers are fraught, and the Taliban are everywhere and nowhere. One night, while observing what appears to be some kind of ritual involving a tethered goat, two of his men disappear. Initially Bonassieu maintains a firm command on the situation. He believes he knows who took the men, and where they might be located. But as certainties begin to fall away, Bonassieu’s grunts – hardened fighters to a man – are consumed with primal fear. Whatever is happening out there is bigger than the war on terror, and far more mysterious.
