Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

One of my all time favorites.

good back-story, and good acting

The acting in this movie is really good.

Daniel Vigne described his film as a modern story that took place in 16th century.Le Retour de Martin Guerre is a wonderful historic romance that pertinently comments on an individual's role in society.The film is a beautiful illustration of 16th century pastoral life. Pancette had the nerve to assume Martin's identity as Bertrande constantly assisted him in deceit.His greed was responsible for his ruin as he claimed wealth which never belonged to him.A vast majority of viewers will not be in a position to form an opinion about Bertrande as she did not wish to spend her life with an impotent village resident.The entire storyline hinges heavily on Gerard Depardieu's captivating performance.His imposing aura makes us readily accept him as the real Martin Guerre even though,in reality,he is Martin's lookalike Pancette.Le Retour de Martin Guerre will fascinate not only the admirers of suspense genre but also those spectators who are attracted to drama.Daniel Vigne has effectively crafted a thought-provoking oeuvre which competently wrestles with major issues like identity and deception.

There is, of course, as someone once said, nothing new under the sun and the cynic in me wonders if Janet Lewis, who wrote (in 1982) the novel on which this film is based, was familiar with a British film directed in 1946 by Basil Dearden entitled 'The Captive Heart'. In that film a Czech soldier, Karel Hasek (Micheael Redgrave) assumes the identity of a dead British soldier, Geoffrey Mitchell, in order to survive and when he is sent to a P.O.W. camp he is obliged to correspond with the dead man's wife, Celia (Rachel Kempson) in order to maintain the pretence and gradually via this correspondence they fall in love but when, at the end of the war, Hasek meets Mitchell there is no question of his pretending to be her dead husband. Daniel Vigne has taken the novel by Lewis and adapted it for the screen. By setting it a few centuries in the past both writer and director distance it from The Captive Heart and do so further by depicting the real Martin Guerre in situ with wife Bertande (Nathalie Baye) then, after establishing his indifference to Bertrande he is allowed to abandon her. Years pass and Martin returns in the shape of Gerard Depardieu who is able to assuage doubts about his identity via his wide knowledge of both Bertande and the neighbors. There's not a great deal of suspense, it's fairly obvious that Depardieu is NOT the Martin Guerre who left the village but Vigne is more concerned with illustrating that Good can come out of Bad; living with Depardieu Baye is much more happy than when living with the real Martin and the faux Martin also proves a much better neighbor so it's just a question of waiting for the bubble to burst and wonder if hope will triumph over knowledge (no such luck) and the lovers will be allowed to live happily ever after. Both Depardieu and Baye turn in first class jobs and the period setting is well photographed. If not exactly a 'must-see' it is well worth seeing.

OK. This is not a remake of "carrefour", as many may think. This is the actual story, on which carrefour was based, from 16th century France, it just happens to have been transferred to film after the other adaptation. Go read the book if you're at all interested, it's by Janet Lewis and is called "The Wife of Martin Guerre". The story is based on court documents among other things, and the character names in this film are those of the actual people. Don't get confused- carrefour may have been made before this film, but this is the closer adaptation and, thus, should not be labeled a remake.

I've seen this film twice, once in French with no subtitles (my French is poor but as I recall the movie intrigued me), and with English sub-titles.Without the distraction of reading the sub-titles the film is a nicely crafted period piece, and in reference to Monty Python, no kings are anywhere in sight. A man returns from war, claims to be Martin, there is general uneasiness in the village, as it turns out this guy gives himself away by being way too nice. The shoemaker blows his cover by discovering his feet are too small. The wifedoesn't complain, I guess not everything was two sizes smaller. He's tried for murdering the real Martin, who turns out to be alive, but he's executed essentially for identity theft. And he didn't even run up his credit cards, which seems a bit severe.The NY Times has this on their list of 1000 best films ever, which mystifies me. One nice touch about the NY times list is a warm place for quirky independent films, like Repo Man, My Life as a Dog, Desperately Seeking Susan. I could go for that. But what I found bizarre was that this was the only "return" film on their list. I'll buy that ROTK wasn't out yet (except that most Times reviewers claim to be omniscient), but to snub Return of the Jedi? The IMDb claimed 399, 239titles last time I looked, and I'd place this solidly towards the middle, maybe even in the top 100,000.