Zakaria and Soraya, a married couple, decide to move to live in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, in order to improve their living conditions, and they join work in a bar in Hamra Street, which accepts the various segments of Lebanese society, which forces them to make many concessions in order to achieve the desired social advancement.

Patrick Perrault, a photo-journalist covering the war in Beirut in the late 1980s, is himself caught up in the hostilities when one day he is picked up and bundled into a car at gun-point. Blind-folded, he is taken to an unknown location where he discovers that he is being taken hostage by Lebanese guerrillas.