As they retreated from Mexico, Maximilian of Austria's troops left behind them an imprisoned Algerian soldier. A firing squad sends him off to a life after death, but a life in which, acpording to the popular Mexican belief, men live their daily lives in the state of skeletons: the Zapatists stay Zapatists and loose women stay loose. Everyone keeps his character, his hopes, his eccentricities. And the Algerian soldier will be quite at home, and will quickly find his place in this new world.