[3] The film takes place in a fictional central African country (called Daresalam, "the Land of Peace" in Arabic) amidst a civil war.

Koni will later be executed in a coup, while Djimi will leave the rebels and return to his home village with a war widow and a sewing machine left to him by a fallen combatant, with which he can attempt to start a new life for himself and his family.

... With in mind the myth of Cain and Abel, Daresalam narrates how this war machine finishes to pit one against the other two friends, at the beginning moved by the same ideals.

"[5] The LA Weekly judged the film positively, calling it "achingly beautiful and sad", and appreciates the final, which "ends on a note of un-ironic optimism that is more radical than all the calculated nihilism currently being served up on Western movie screens", and compared the film to Barbet Schroeder's Our Lady of the Assassins in their common ambition "to shed light on shadowy existences".

[6] The film is analyzed by Roy Armes, that observes how Coelo avoids any heroics, showing the rebels' limitations and the confusion of the conflict.