The film portrayed a new village school teacher whose indifference to traditional customs causes conflict with the school's headmaster and disrupts village life. His second film, Le grand blanc de Lambaréné (1995), brought out the complexities of character of Albert Schweitzer. Despite clear differences of setting and subject matter, both films "offer vivid portraits of flawed idealists who wish to do good, but are authoritarian, puritanical, at odds with their surroundings and neglectful towards their womenfolk".[2]