92-year-old Hermine Morel lives her last days. Her relatives discover a package of letters written by her late husband Rene, while he was on the frontline of the Indochina War. Rene, who only had survived in Hermine's memory, resurfaces in the life of the family.
'The Body of René' is a love story interrupted by war and a black body snatched from the memory of its own family. The film crosses over the quests of a family shattered in different places, including the filmmaker himself. It all revolves around the absence of René, a French officer from Martinique who died during combat in the Indochina war back in 1951. His body was never found. Nevertheless, the discovery of a bundle of letters written by him revives buried feelings reminding the filmmaker of his native country, Syria.
