Amid the azure waters and sunbaked desert landscapes of Djibouti, a French Foreign Legion sergeant sows the seeds of his own ruin as his obsession with a striking young recruit grows. Denis and cinematographer Agnès Godard fold masculine honor, colonialism’s legacy, destructive jealousy, and repressed desire into shimmering, hypnotic images that ultimately explode in one of the most unforgettable endings in all of modern cinema.