The dramatic events around the French king Louis XVI and the French crises in the late 1700's with no will to pay taxes, which led Louis XVI into an impossible situation as a king.

Paul Baumer and his friends Albert and Muller, egged on by romantic dreams of heroism, voluntarily enlist in the German army. Full of excitement and patriotic fervour, the boys enthusiastically march into a war they believe in. But once on the Western Front, they discover the soul-destroying horror of World War I.

Touched by the grace of speech, two dogs philosophize in a hospital car park, at night. Together, they paint a bleak picture of a humanity in the grip of a grand calamity, crumbling on the way our all too human certainties.