Turn!
Sweet hope...
We repeat.
To all French forces in Indochina. Soft...
How much time did we waste?
We repeat. To all French forces...
Lisbonne!
“Sweet hope” is the alert!
The Japanese are kicking us out.
Everyone out! Gathering!
Five minutes!
I want everyone here!
Come on, quick!
Quick!
Join the others in the courtyard. We leave.
Are you okay, Alvarez?
- Yes... Yes, it's okay. - He arranged you well.
How are you.
How are you?
- Do you have a problem, Eisinger? - No.
You know something?
- Do you know what's going on? - I don't know.
I don't know.
We have sick people.
Let's ask for a closer meeting point. To you.
Impossible. To you.
I repeat, it is impossible for us to
apply the dispersal order with the sick.
To you.
Do your best.
Good luck.
Finished.
Attention!
Collected section. On your command, my adjutant.
Section, rest.
The Japanese attacked throughout the territory. They arrive.
We're going to Son La.
We find the rest of the 5th there.
It is the base for withdrawal towards China.
- The great stampede.
We should wait for them at the bed, the Japs.
It's a rest camp here.
Five years of polishing their pumps.
Distribute the weapons.
Except Lemiotte.
I warn you.
If you leave, I'll shoot you.
OK. Here we go. Come on lads! Come on!
What the hell are we going to do in the jungle?
My adjutant.
Sorry, adjutant. But I can not.
Let us stay at camp.
We don't have the strength.
Marly and Cosaque, we must not think of you, otherwise
we will never arrive in China.
Come on, come on.
Mathu?
I can't anymore.
I can not anymore.
We are the “drink column”.
- Whore. - The “drink column”!
We're going to get caught.
Give me your bag, Methuselah.
Quickly!
Come on.
And walk!
Let the mules pass.
Are you okay?
10 March 1945 walking diary.
Are you okay, doctor?
Departure from Khan Khai yesterday at 17:00.
Total number: nineteen.
It's okay, Alvarez. It's all clean.
Kossakowski and Marly asked to stay at the camp.
They were unable to walk.
At least write their name.
We mourn a missing person,
Krapfield.
Objective: Son La's post.
Distance: 200 km.
Our chances of getting there are close to nil.
Marly.
Cosaque.
The Legion never abandons its own.
Come on, lads. Here we go.
Grab your stuff, let's move!
Come on! Doctor.
Vamos, vamos.
Come on, Chick.
- It stinks of death. - It's okay, Lemiotte.
My adjutant.
Can I tell you something?
Say always, Lemiotte.
No offence, if we all wait for the
slowest, we'll all die. Don't you believe?
We should make groups. That way, some of them will escape.
It's not every man for himself, the Legion. Should have thought about it first.
The Legion, I signed for 5 years.
It's been 4 years since my contract ended.
And I'm stuck here.
We've all been stuck here, like you, for years.
Me included. You're the only one whining.
Do you want to walk alone?
Scout ahead.
Without a weapon?
At your command, my adjutant.
The four corners of the forest, protect us.
Fifth day of walking.
We had to leave the track before being caught.
We couldn't walk any faster without losing the weakest.
My adjutant. My adjutant!
- What? - A tiger! I saw a tiger.
Didn't you dream, Alvarez?
I saw a tiger.
The men are delirious.
Madness awaits us.
Keep some semblance of order, so
we don't all become wild beasts again.
But here, nature is in charge.
Vamos, Alvarez.
Vamos, vamos, vamos.
No no no!
Calm down, calm down!
- What's wrong with him? - A snake, I think.
My captain!
- It's what? - Captain!
- Snake! - It's what?
- Has anyone seen the snake? - No.
- No! - Shh!
- How are you. - Hold it firmly.
It's nothing, it's nothing.
- Calm down. - What are you doing?
- So.
Wait, wait.
Hold him, I'll give him an injection.
Don't move, Stigmann.
You'll see, everything is fine.
Everything is fine.
And shit.
A problem?
The morphine that was in my bag has disappeared. There's nothing left.
My adjutant!
Someone stole the morphine.
Lemiotte, report!
Yes, my adjutant?
Morphine, Lemiotte.
What did you do with it?
Empty your bag.
The other.
Come on, the other one.
Empty all your bags.
Come on. Now.
What?
Empty your bags!
All pockets.
Go now! I want to see!
Forget it, Lisbonne.
Here we go.
The Japs.
Shit.
I didn't expect to find them already there.
Son La, it's done.
We cross, we continue in the jungle.
Calm down!
Shut him up! The Japs are here!
He will calm down.
Calm down, Stigmann. Shh!
Stop yelling! Stopped.
Stop, stop.
Stopped.
He is breathing.
- Good.
We hide, we wait for the night.
Two, three.
Come on.
Here we go.
Shh.
I hear something.
Drop, drop, drop.
Lisbonne.
Come on.
Margola, over to you.
Sorbonne,
in the process. - Yes.
Let's go.
- Where is Lemiotte? - He was behind us.
Eisinger.
Go back.
Go ahead, go see what he's doing.
Lemiotte?
What are you playing, Lemiotte?
Come on.
Come on, let's go.
Stop your circus, Lemiotte.
We'll die if we stay with Janiçki.
- Come with me. - No.
So hand me your gun and let me go.
- No. - Eisinger, let me go.
He is going to kill me. You understand?
I won't say anything, don't worry.
Come on.
Run! Quick, go!
This way, this way!
Come on, stand up!
Die Spinnen!
I remember!
Margola!
I remember everything.
Die Spinnen!
It's the spiders.
We lost the mules.
Stigmann.
Where is Lemiotte?
I am here, my adjutant.
Because of you, Eisinger and Margola are dead.
On your knees.
- I fell, my adjutant. - On your knees!
- When crossing... - I warned you.
- Janiçki!
My adjutant.
Let go of me.
Here we go.
19 March 1945.
Eisinger and Margola are dead.
Dagoni has disappeared.
Lemiotte will go to court martial.
It is, I think, irrecoverable.
No more supplies.
Impossible to hunt.
We only eat roots.
The Tiger.
You're crazy, Alvarez.
Methuselah
called us the “drink column.”
It's nothing, Alvarez.
Vamos.
Vamos, vamos.
Marly.
You're not dead?
Did you pray, Lemiotte?
Do you believe in God?
I'm surprised.
It surprises me from a guy like you.
We are alone.
I just think we're alone, Marly.
We're all alone.
We have to find supplies.
What can we do?
Mia Lang, my captain.
Mia Lang?
Tinh knows... There's a meo auxiliary camp there.
Where is it?
Us there.
Mia Lang, there. China, there.
Ah, it’s playable.
That’s 80 kilometres more.
One week, ten more days.
Laotian soldiers are not going to leave their village.
There, they will have ammunition, food.
This is our only chance to reach China.
What if we stop running away?
We hide, we cover our tracks
and we survive in the jungle.
- We are soldiers, Aubrac. - Soldiers?
Really?
Food can be found, but the forest
is dangerous and the spirits are evil.
We don't care about spirits!
Shh.
Alvarez, I won't say anything.
I too have visions.
Shh.
Puta madre.
- Alvarez. - It's underneath.
He is suffocating. Pull!
Shoot, shoot!
- Come on! - Come on, Alvarez. Good God!
Pull!
Attention. Oh shit.
Corporal.
Are you injured?
No. It's the blood of the tiger.
Que susto.
What's your name?
- Your name? -Julio Alvarez.
Alvarez Julio.
Come on, lads.
We're leaving as quickly as possible.
Killing a tiger is not good.
Stop, Tinh. You're pissing us off.
We cut the meat and leave.
- He is alone? - Hats off, Stigmann!
- You got it! - He is alone?
- Who's afraid now? - Go ahead, Stigmann!
Who is afraid?
He's a dirty Japanese! Dirty Japanese!
- What are you doing? - Oh oh!
Oh! Oh!
He shot us.
He shot us, that idiot.
And him?
It was Stigmann who killed him.
Poussin, what happened?
Answer.
He... He...
He shot us.
Lemiotte stopped him.
Why was he shooting at you?
I don't know, adjutant.
I don't know.
He has gone mad, my adjutant.
Lisbonne.
Take his gun.
It's my fault.
We're all going crazy.
The Japs are not far away.
You have to leave.
Thank you.
11 April 1945.
We have been walking for more than a month.
Stigmann is dead.
Be careful.
He came across a Japanese scout.
[tension music]
The enemy is very close.
We are spotted now.
We know it.
Come.
What do you think, my adjutant?
We sit here and wait for them.
What are you talking about? From an ambush?
Honestly, boss, there's no worse idea.
We no longer have the strength,
nothing left to eat.
Even if it means dying, I prefer to die with weapons in hand.
Like our elders in Mexico.
Are we going to do Camerone?
Chaps.
The Japanese are going to come upon us any moment.
So we stop here and wait for them.
Hide.
Alvarez.
We see your kepi.
Chick, arm your carabineer.
No one shoots before me.
I'm thinking of names.
In the names of the dead.
Are our names recorded somewhere on a register?
Are we already dead?
My adjutant.
Charger!
FM!
Ammo! Ammo!
- Sorbonne, charger! - It's blocked!
Stop the fire!
It's okay, Poussin.
Stop, Poussin. Stopped.
Well done, Poussin.
Karamyan is dead.
Tragiliev too.
Injured people?
No.
But we succeeded. We are alive!
How are you?
We can't eat that.
They had nothing to eat either.
Listen to me, everyone.
What you did today
only legionnaires could do it.
The Japanese will take us for what we are,
real soldiers.
Lemiotte, you return your weapon.
I won this rifle.
I have largely done my part.
Return your weapon.
I don't trust you, Lemiotte.
Now that you are spirits,
protect us.
Watch out!
Present...
weapons!
12 April 1945.
Somewhere north of RC7.
Clashes with the Japanese.
Losses: Tragiliev and Karamyan.
Enemy section put out of action.
Japanese as hungry as us.
I feel faint,
but for the first time, I believe
we are capable of reaching China,
despite the hunger and illnesses we carry.
Are you okay?
Corporal?
- Corporal? - Yes?
There's no more trail.
Tinh, where is it?
It's over there.
Do you have any doubts?
No.
It's okay.
To Mia Lang, I can treat you better.
A cousin has herbs.
Why are you staying with us, Tinh?
Are you coming with us to Europe or are you going home?
Leave him alone, Lisbonne.
You don't answer?
In your village, do they like the French?
If I wasn't on your side, you would all be dead.
What?
Chick.
These are my cousins.
How long, doctor?
I would say four, five days.
Corporal.
My corporal, Kommen Sie!
- Is that Mia Lang? - Yes.
Karlsson, Sorbonne.
Go see if there's anything to eat.
Oh, my adjutant! My adjutant!
It’s hot! It's malaria.
- It's okay. - We'll take him to safety there.
Slowly slowly.
Tinh, water!
Slowly, gently, gently.
Calm. So.
Come on, come on.
Wait, wait.
There's a lot to eat in there.
Is there no food?
There's no.
- The adjutant said we would eat! - Mathu, stop!
Three days without eating!
Don't go there, Mathu, it's horrible.
The adjutant said we would meet up with the lads at Son La.
We didn't reach anyone.
The adjutant had said that we would eat at
Mia Lang, and there were only dead people.
It's over, Janiçki.
It's finish.
China...
China?
- It will be without us. - He's right.
Now is not the time, Lemiotte.
On the contrary, Lisbonne.
Now is the time.
If the authority doesn't deliver, you have to get rid of it.
What are you hoping for, huh? What are you hoping for?
There are a few of us who think we can't continue like this.
Yes.
We're just men lost in the jungle.
There are no more rules.
No more boss.
It's understood?
Stop being stupid.
It's understood?
Vaffanculo, corporal.
You can see that authority sucks!
Chick, your weapon!
You stop, Lemiotte!
Stop, please.
- Doctor. - Back off!
What are you waiting for?
Move further, you and Stenweeg, and you are dead.
Warrant Officer Janiçki assumes responsibility for this column.
He is the one in charge.
Is it clear to everyone?
It's clear?
Sorbonne, Karlsson.
Tie up this fool for me.
And Stenweeg too.
Musso, return your weapon.
Give up your gun, dammit!
You chose your side wrong,
my captain.
You are a weakling.
18 April 1945.
41st day of walking.
I am resuming the drafting of reports following the defection
of Warrant Officer Janiçki,
victim of malaria.
Let's move on from Mia Lang's nightmare.
Dozens of Laotian partisans brutally murdered.
Let's move forward blindly, heading north.
The prisoners suffer without
complaint, despite the looming platoon.
Lemiotte touches me.
I was reminded of a sentence I
read in Voyage au bout de la nuit:
"If people are so mean,
"maybe it's only because they are suffering,
"but the time is long which separates
"the moment they stopped suffering
"the one where they become a little better."
Miléna...
Lemiotte must have suffered a lot to harden himself so much.
Milena...
Milena... Milena...
Milena...
You said to eat the tiger.
Now the spirits are angry.
You are punished for good.
You're dying anyway.
The deserters disappeared, taking their map and compass.
All we have left is Tinh and the sun to guide us.
We followed Janiçki like ghosts,
without knowing where we were going or why.
Obeying laws that may no longer apply,
which the forest mocks.
We are the “drink column”, we
walk carried away by the current.
My hope: that one of us gets there,
that we don't all die like abandoned animals.
Sorbonne, wake up!
Come on, Chick. Stand!
Karlsson.
Tinh.
Tinh!
Hey! Alvarez!
Let's go, friend.
Franco, Francisco Franco, fuck your mother!
Viva la muerte.
Morphine.
It was him.
He was an anarchist.
Neither God nor master.
Hello, Alvarez.
Adios, friend.
Mid-May. Malaria attacks are less violent,
the spirits of Tinh leave me alone.
I resume writing the notebook.
Number: seven.
Lemiotte, Stenweeg and Pepelucci, desertion.
We lost Methuselah.
And now, Alvarez,
exhaustion.
We are completely lost.
Aubrac is right.
If one of us can do
it, we can all do it.
We,
the last of men.
You hear?
You heard?
Flygplan.
Flygplan!
Aeroplane!
Aeroplane. Don't you hear?
Aeroplane!
It's the general staff who are coming to get us!
Aeroplane! Flygplan!
Hey! Oh!
Karlsson.
Where did you find that, boss?
I was saving them to smoke with you in heaven.
Thank you.
Anyone have a lighter?
Oh.
Anyone have another lighter?
Tack.
Somewhere on the border side.
Around the end of June.
We found the stabbed remains
of Stenweeg and Pepelucci.
The Japs, I hope.
We have not found Lemiotte.
Aubrac is dead,
his heart gave out.
Remaining strength: Corporal Lisboa,
Tréfeuil, Karlsson, Volmann, Tinh and me.
I cling to our names.
I cling to this notebook.
I think of my son.
I am thinking of you, my son.
I think of you, my son.
It’s the Mekong.
What will you do after the war?
Do you want to return to Europe?
I don't know if I want to return to Europe.
Do you have children?
A son.
And you?
No.
Did you lose your wife a long time ago?
For a long time, yes.
And you?
Is your wife waiting for you?
I don't know.
We're going to be visible and out in the open for a long time.
We are going to do a reconnaissance 500 metres upstream and downstream.
If it's clean, we cross
as quickly as possible.
I don't have a wife.
Never had a wife, never had a family.
I am alone.
Shall we go there?
It's a broken branch today.
Enough!
I don't know!
My name is Giuseppe Sottile!
I have deserted death!
- I don't know!
They are all dead.
I don't know.
I don’t know!
He gets what he deserves.
So what do we do? Should we let him die?
There are six of us. You say there are ten of them.
We're going to surprise them.
We wait until morning.
No no no. We run away.
We cross.
Here we are, my adjutant. There! Now!
He deserted.
We're going to go find that idiot Lemiotte and get out of here.
We're not going to risk our skin for Lemiotte.
It's not for him, it's for us.
If we let him, we are like him.
He'll pay for what he did, but we won't let him die.
We really abandoned our patients.
We don't let anyone die anymore.
I know we're not like him. Neither I, nor you, nor them!
I don't know.
Now is the time to find out.
I'm not forcing you to come, Lisbonne.
Take your weapons.
Lemiotte. Lemiotte.
It's me.
The spirits protected you, Lemiotte.
You did something good
in the past or in another life.
Shit!
Course! Course!
Come.
Come! Come!
Lisbonne...
The bullet went through.
- Shall I bandage you, my adjutant? - No.
Thank you. Later.
The French.
Do you know where the French are?
My adjutant, look!
Who are you? The French?
- Who are these men? - They look like French people, Colonel.
Major Bellington. Liaison officer with Chinese troops.
Warrant Officer Janiçki,
5th Foreign Infantry Regiment.
Where are you from?
Khan Khai. South Laos.
Southern Laos? Did you walk all that way?
Are there any French around here?
The French Command is 40 km away, downstream of the Mekong.
Can you take us there?
Impossible, we evacuated the camp.
And the Chinese won't help you.
The adjutant is injured.
And them too. We're at the end of our strength here.
We have a few seats left on the plane, by any chance?
Five is too many. Choose two men.
Where are you going?
- Calcutta. - Calcutta?
Don't you know that the war is over?
Poussin, Sorbonne, Karlsson... Go for it.
Two, no more!
You can't do that. If you knew...
Go ahead, Karlsson. You fly out with them.
Why not you, my adjutant?
I have something to finish.
Come on, lads. Let's go!
Hurry up!
Move it! Move it!
Dirty shit! Go home!
Have you found Musso and Stenweeg?
Where you left them.
Are they dead?
You killed them.
Why would I have done that?
It was the war that killed them, not me.
You see, Janiçki...
It's only me that you brought to China alive.
And you send me to the firing squad.
You only saved yourself, Janiçki.
You should have left us to fend for ourselves.
And all this for what?
They let us die.
And you what are you doing? The good soldier?
To follow the rules of those who let us down?
But you know why, Janiçki?
Because stripes are all you have.
Without the stripes,
you're nothing.
Without the war,
you're nothing.
I was here to pay for my stupidity.
The Legion,
I owe him nothing anymore.
I don't owe him anything anymore.
Let me go, Janiçki.
No.
Let me go.
We have to...
You have to pay for what you did.
For the deaths you caused.
What do you still care?
It's not worth it.
I lost too much blood.
Why didn't you let me die?
For what?
Don’t you understand?
No.
I know.
Take it to headquarters.
Get over it.
That we didn't do all this for nothing.
But we did all this for nothing.
Do it for them.
Are you asking me to keep this?
So if they catch me with it, they'll shoot me?
But what do you think?
I'm going to burn it, Janiçki.
No chance of it falling on you.
As you say.
It's stupid.
I wish they knew
how we died.
Let my son know
that I thought of him.
I understand you, Lemiotte.
I was like you.
Will you bury me?
Losses crossing the Mekong: Lisbonne and Tinh.
Karlsson, Tréfeuil and Volmann
died in the crash of the English aeroplane
that evacuated them to Calcutta.
Lemiotte, wounded, died on the north bank.
Myself, injured in the arm,
I'm getting back to writing as best I can.
You abandoned us,
and fate fell hard on us.
What could we do, the alcoholics, the less than nothing people?
In any case,
the “drink column” salutes you.
My adjutant, we are going to organise a ceremony in
memory of the dead of your column,
with the presentation of the Croix de Guerre for each missing person this afternoon.
The Alessandri column arrived in China three months ago.
Your efforts and the efforts of all those who arrived...
I deserted death.
I am a deserter of death.
A question about Lemiotte.
Do you want us to include it in the tribute or not?
No.
Are you sure?
It would cost nothing and it would preserve an image of unity.
It was...
Irrecoverable?
Yes.
The pain will never stop.
Warrant Officer Janiçki?
My name is Giuseppe Sottile.
Warrant Officer Janiçki?
Lemiotte was my legion name.
My name is Giuseppe Sottile.
Present... arms!
Captain Aubrac.
Death for France.
Corporal Lisboa.
Death for France.
Legionnaire Alvarez.
Death for France.
Soldier Tinh...
We are alone.
Death for France.
Legionnaire Pepelucci.
Death for France.
Legionnaire Stenweeg.
Death for France.
Legionnaire Stigmann.
Lemiotte.
Grazie.
Where does this river flow?
Where does this path lead?
Where, the clouds of dawn?
Where, the sky in the evening?
Where do men's eyes look?
Where are the footsteps of men going?