Summer 1996. A small town nestled in the shadow of a gigantic factory. Ben, a shy eleven year old boy, lives there alone with his mom when she leaves him to strike. The coming of the troubling Eva in his bunch disturbs him a little bit more, especially when she mentions the legend of a mysterious creature hidden under a nearby lake's pontoon. As a game, Eva challenges Ben: walk through the "pontoon of the death", and come back. But Ben fails miserably. At night, the Creature appears to him.

In the early 1920s, Georges Laffont, traumatized by the horrific trench warfare, decides to leave his life behind and travel to West Africa. In the vast territories of Upper Volta he - with the help of Diofo, artist and also survivor of the Great War - try to recruit the villagers as labor for plantations in Ghana. But his adventure leads him to a dead-end, and he comes back to Paris desperate to find his place in the world.