Following their international success with Amelie, director Jeunet and star Tatou reteamed for a much darker look at love and destiny. Set in World War I-era France, the film tells the story of Manech and Mathilde, young lovers who are torn apart when Manech is called to the front lines of the war. Seeking escape from the trenches, Manech and four other men injure themselves, but they are court-marshalled and sentenced to be abandoned in "no man's land," where they are presumably killed by the enemy. Three years later, Mathilde obsessively tries to prove that Manech has survived. As she investigates the events of the still-recent past, flashbacks reveal the action from differing perspectives. In its depiction of the delicate relationship between Mathilde's hopes, people's interpretations of the past, and the objective question of Manech's survival, the film becomes a meditation on the obscurity of history and the irrationality of war.