A year after examining life in occupied France in the 1940s in The Sorrow and the Pity, Ophüls trained his camera on the participants in a contemporary conflict: the troubles in Northern Ireland. Without the benefit of distance or the framework of a resolution, he wades into the midst of the conflict and interviews people—from political leaders to average citizens—on both sides. Among these voices are those of a couple mourning the death of their seventeen-month-old child, well-known figures such as Bernadette Devlin and Ian Paisley, old women bedecked in Union Jack attire, and children who walk daily through an armed war zone. As Ophüls documents the consequences of senseless acts of violence on everyday life, images of barbed wire and rifles bring an eerie sense of connection to his previous study of wartime France.