The film depicts ordinary people participating in the Vichy regime, which collaborated with the Nazis and oversaw the deportation of a quarter of France’s Jewish population to concentration camps. Specifically, the Vichy regime was responsible for the deportation of 76,000 Jewish people to Nazi concentration camps.
Director Emmanuel Marre drew inspiration for the movie from family letters belonging to his great-grandfather, Henri Marre, who served as a Vichy administrator. Marc Olivier Baruch noted that history is also made by the second-players, the grassroots who act on the ground.
Furthermore, Baruch suggested that the film's sense of unease mirrors France's current period of great uncertainty and lack of confidence in its elites and state. Marre stated that after the war, France pushed a lot of history under the carpet to survive.
The Pétain dictatorship, according to Baruch, represented the sole instance of the far right holding power since 1820. At the Cannes film festival in 2026, Marre secured the best Screenplay prize.
