Johan details the director's quest for an actor to play his titular lover, the real deal having been incarcerated just prior to shooting on charges of petty theft.

In October 1942, as an offensive was launched against Rommel's troops, a vehicle carrying a doctor and four nurses strayed into the desert. Prisoners of a German unit and aware that it was going to use them to ambush the Allied relief column, they set out to foil the plan.

At a construction site, an ex-con tries to sabotage the marriage of a man who married his fiancée while he was in prison.

June 1940, near Saumur. During the exodus, the bridges having been destroyed, a group of refugees, brought together by the chance of fleeing the advancing German troops, build a raft to cross the Loire to evacuate a sick little girl.