1982 ‘Le Retour de Martin Guerre’ Directed by Daniel Vigne
Village of Artigat, southern France, summer 1542, during the reign of Francis I. Martin Guerre and Bertrande de Rols marry. A few years later, accused of having committed a robbery, Martin suddenly disappears. When, almost a decade later, a man arrives in Artigat claiming to be Martin, the Guerre family recognizes him as such; but doubts soon arise about his true identity.
Gérard Depardieu Nathalie Baye Maurice Barrier Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu Isabelle Sadoyan Rose Thiéry Chantal Deruaz André Chaumeau Maurice Jacquemont Roger Planchon Francis Arnaud Philippe Babin Axel Bogousslavsky Valérie Chassigneux Neige Dolsky Adrien Duquesne Gilbert Gilles Tchéky Karyo Jean-Claude Perrin Dominique Pinon Alain Recoing René Bouloc Alain Frérot Stéphane Péan André Delon Danièle Loo Marcel Champel Sylvie Méda Yvette Petit Show All…
Martin Guerres återkomst, Powrót Martina Guerre, Завръщането на Мартен Гер
Cinematic Time Capsule
1982 Marathon - Film #50
”Is it really you?”
Based on a true story of a 1540’s Frenchman who leaves his young family to go fight in a war, and travel. Nearly a decade later he returns and even though he’s immediately accepted, over time questions start to arise about his actual identity, causing many troubles to ensue.
During the first act, I was surprised by how much the young Martin looked like Gérard Depardieu. When I looked him up I was shocked to discover that it was Bernard-Pierre Donnadie who so brilliantly played the abductor in one of my all-time favorite films, The Vanishing.. Combine that with a strong performance from Depardieu and an early role…
I gotta say I procrastinated so long and finally watched this movie only to be availed of it's amazement. Stark in it's lighting but quite beautifully shot helped create an atmosphere with a great wardrobe aesthetic for the time. This feels like a simple story on paper but luckily due to the great direction and acting it achieves a smart complexity which I can't help think of the terrible terminology nowadays of "Fake news" but it really spins it on it's head with dealing in relationships, community and government. Honestly this ending floored me by what was not said and I love when a movie trusts your intelligence enough to figure it out. this still has a lot of lingering questions for me that only ingratiates me more to the material but I don't want to spoil it for anyone. C'est la guerre.
This is quite a famous legal case and also very well-known in France, and the film plays it as such. You will be a bit lost the first 30 minutes or so as to the significance of anything you're seeing, unless you know the story. The film is essentially like CSI French Middle Ages. All the details that will be important to determining the case are seen at the start, so you should really watch with that foreknowledge in order to get the most from the film.
If you've never heard of Martin Guerre, this is a weird, kind of funny case that could never happen in the 21st century. But back in the 15th century, if a man left…
A surprisingly suspenseful and entertaining TRUE medieval tale which starts as all good stories do... with erectile dysfunction
This definitive version of the story of Martin Guerre (remade in English with Richard Gere and Jodie Foster as 'Sommersby'; and musicalised in a misguided version by Boublil and Schoenberg) is amongst French actor Gérard Depardieu's greatest roles.
As the bluff, romantic, sensitive soldier who returns to the village after years away (or does he?) he manages to provoke all sorts of reactions from his other on-screen characters as well as the film's audience.
As Bernadette de Rols, the wife seeking love and companionship, Nathalie Baye is superb; while a large and talented cast give flesh to the remaining characters. I defy anyone to see this adaptation and not be moved by it; try and see in the cinema, where it undoubtedly has more power than on a small screen; and avoid the version dubbed into English. 'Le Retour de Martin Guerre' needs to survive with its language and poetry intact.
My father, who's an attorney, once told me about this event, saying it's one of the most famous fraud identity cases of all time. When I entered graduate school for a Master's in History and took my introductory course, one of the first books we read was Princeton historian Natalie Zemon Davis' "The Return of Martin Guerre," which, I was informed, was one of the hallmark works of microhistory.
As it turns out, Davis, who would publish her seminal work a year after the film's release, not only served as a historical advisor on the film, but also worked on the screenplay with legendary Luis Buñuel screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. As far as I can tell--and I would love to hear…
Ye olde courtroom drama.
The Return of Martin Guerre is exactly the kind of sneakily unique and great film that I'm always on the lookout for. I love films that strive for accurate historic recreation, and this movie feels like an especially painstaking attempt to bring the viewer back to village life in 16th century France.
The selection of an isolated village location made the setting easy to bring back to a convincing version of the past, along with some absolutely excellent costume design and brilliant casting all around.
Depardieu is fantastic, as is usual for his younger roles, especially, and Nathalie Baye & Maurice Barrier are entirely convincing in their respective roles of his wife and uncle.
All that would…
The Return of Martin Guerre is an incredibly hard-to-find movie. My mom has been enthusing about it for ages, and *finally* I got my hands on it (virtually, anyway). Thanks, Kanopy!
It is an exceptionally-rendered period piece that highlights the absolute isolation and ignorance (not necessarily in a negative sense) of people in the Middle Ages. Of course, the costumes are perfectly drab and the set design is accurate right down to the cups on the tables. But what really makes this movie stand out is how it captures the ways in which people Middle Ages viewed family, women's voices, and sex, among other things. The acting, of course, is superb, and the ending was absolutely perfect. The film definitely…
