As star and narrator, Dupontel is Albert Maillard, a rank-and-file French infantryman battling to survive trench warfare as WWI comes to its conclusion. In a horrific final sortie, Maillard is almost buried alive by debris and his comrade Édouard Péricourt is horribly disfigured after being hit by mortar fire. Péricourt becomes addicted to morphine during his convalescence and, living behind elaborate masks to hide his disfigurement, concocts a plan with Maillard to sell phony monuments to French towns honouring their dead; an undertaking that will prove as dangerous as it is stunning.