Themes: Mysterious Strangers, Assumed Identities, Haunted By the Past
Main Cast: Gérard Depardieu, Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Roger Planchon, Nathalie Baye, Sylvie Meda
Release Year: 1982
Country: FR
Run Time: 123 minutes
Plot
The Return of Martin Guerre is set in France during the Hundred Years' War. Imagining herself a widow, Nathalie Baye is astonished when her husband Gerard Depardieu returns after nine years. He looks like her husband and sounds like her husband, and certainly has a working knowledge of the couple's prior relationship. Still, neither Baye nor her neighbors can shake the notion that Depardieu is an imposter--especially since he's a much nicer and more responsible person than the man who marched off to war so long ago. Matters come to a head when the local magistrate sentences Depardieu to hang for his own murder. Return of Martin Guerre was the principal source for an American film, Sommersby (1993). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Daniel Vigne's Le Retour de Martin Guerre is a beguiling mystery of identity, memory, perception, and how the passage of time can blur all three. The key to its intrigue is the performance of Gerard Depardieu, whose alternately familiar and remote Martin keeps the audience flip flopping about whether to believe his story or distrust it. His character is occasionally greedy and shifty-eyed, which to some is evidence of his status as an impostor -- to others, these are traits displayed in spades by Martin before he left, and they aren't present enough for this to be the man himself. A slow beginning is quickly redeemed by the contentious debate that dominates the film, which produces mounting evidence on either side that this either must be or must not be Martin Guerre. Complicating matters are the repercussions on Martin's wife, played with long-suffering patience by Nathalie Baye, who, according to 16th century religious custom, would be damned to Hell if she had been mistakenly sleeping with a man other than her husband for years. The deliberations of the magistrates charged with settling the case are also fascinating. In keeping with Vigne's reputation as a perfectionist, the era is painstakingly re-created, and shot with style and beauty. The film also marks the screen debut of prominent French character actor Tcheky Karyo. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
The Return of Martin Guerre (Le Retour de Martin Guerre) is a 1982 Frenchfilm directed by Daniel Vigne and based on true events in France during the 16th century. (See main article Martin Guerre). The film depicts a case of identity theft after a war, a man showing up in his village several years after his departure, soon eliciting suspicions from his former friends on his identity.
In 1983, a book of the same name was written by Natalie Zemon Davis, an American historian of early modern France.
