Karim Traïdia (who emigrated to Holland from Algeria in the late 1970s) explores both options. It's as if Sahafi is leading parallel lives. In one strand of the story, we see him fighting a forlorn battle for freedom of speech in Algeria. In the other, he runs aground against an implacable Dutch bureaucracy. Sombre, heavy on talk, this is a probing and intelligent political drama. Agoumi, one of Algeria's best known stage actors, brings dignity and pathos to his role as the conscience-torn journalist.
Sahafi, an Algerian journalist, survives several attacks on his life. When he comes to Holland to give a lecture, his friend Madjid suggests he should ask for political asylum. Sahafi thinks about the proposal, but is killed in another assassination attempt. Then Karim Traïdia stops time in his film and provides a glimpse of the two worlds in which Sahafi would have lived, had he lived. The first possibility is a threatened life as outspoken journalist in a fatherland with a non-democratic regime. The other possibility is a life in Holland as unemployed journalist who has to wait in silence to see whether his application for political asylum is accepted by the bureaucrats. The film portrays a life in extremes, from the excitement of the art of survival and bitter survival humor to a dependence on others and waiting tensely in a foreign country. In an almost theatrical style, with meticulously composed images, Traïdia cuts effortlessly back and forth between the time of the protagonist in Algeria and in Holland. The beautiful acting and the intelligent production help the movie to succeed in communicating the constant paranoia under an oppressive regime juxtaposed with the blundering lack of understanding of the paternalistic Dutch.