de Mores has disappeared in North Africa, and his wife wished to hire Eberhardt to track him down, as she is familiar with the region.

Eberhardt falls in love with Slimene (Tchéky Karyo), a French Foreign Legion soldier, who arranges for her to travel out in secret.

After reaching the outpost at Aïn Séfra, Eberhardt meets a French officer, General Hubert Lyautey (Peter O'Toole).

Lyautey requests that Eberhardt travel to Morocco to ask a marabout for permission to pursue a bandit into his territory.

While he is out he realises Eberhardt will be in danger from the growing amount of water, but he does not make it back to the hut in time to save her.

Inside her hut, Eberhardt realises she is in danger when it is too late and declares she wants to live an instant before a wall of water demolishes the house, killing her.

Eberhardt reads the final paragraph from her short story "The Breath of Night" in a voice over, as images of the desert and water appear on screen.

Writing in Australian Film 1978–1994, Raymond Younis attributed many themes to the film, saying it encompassed "the search for identity and the creative constitution of the self; the nature and role of the writer in a tumultuous world where values are compromised or surrendered; the issue of complicity in dishonourable political and military processes and in the brutality of colonisation; the paradox of tribal conflict among the indigenous people; the need for love and companionship; and the desire for oblivion under a sky which seems to be indifferent to the fate of such restless and tormented wanderers.

[2] Ian Pringle said he read about the life of Isabelle Eberhardt about ten years prior to filming, and was fascinated and intrigued by her.

[6] Salacious sex scenes which "read like erotic fiction" in the script were shot but not used in the final cut of the film.

[8] William Tilland from AllMusic gave the album four out of five stars, saying the "music slips back and forth between European romanticism and a restrained ethnic exoticism which includes touches of synthesized Middle Eastern oud and modal scales.

"[12] Fabienne Pascaud from Télérama gave a scathing review, advising fans of Eberhardt to avoid the film, saying it was flat and silly and filled with ridiculous and unbelievable scenes.

[13] Younis called the film a "hodgepodge", saying it lurched from "one sub-plot to another, while the really interesting material is submerged for significant periods".