Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Palaest recommended

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

GeneSiskel Beautifully photographed, scripted, and acted, The Widow of Saint-Pierre pits individual responsibility, redemption, and forgiveness against pettifogging, career-hugging minions of France's shaky Second Republic. Set in 1849, on a group of tiny islands off Newfoundland -- France's last bastion in North America -- the film draws us in with the earthiness of the locals, the stops-out independence of a military captain and his beautiful wife, and the quizzical behavior of a condemned man. It carries us to the conclusion on the strength of the drama, a familiar one of enlightened values endangered, of modernity oppressed. Although the costumes are lovely, it is not remotely a costume drama or a feminine romance. This is the Dreyfus Affair, a half century before the fact. Ten out of ten.

clotblaster This film will be a little slow for some American tastes, and the performances, which are uniformly good, may seem a little pretentious. But this marvelous film with its solid plot and timeless themes make it a good movie. What makes it a great one is the acting of Daniel Auteuil and, to a lesser extent, Juliette Binoche.Many Americans are unfamiliar with the acting of the French actor, Daniel Auteuil. I have seen him in at least 20 films, in a variety of roles, and he is an accomplished actor, perhaps the most accomplished of our time. He has a difficult role in this film that requires a kind of underplaying and a certain stiffness in his performance. But he brings off his part magnificently.The main theme will provoke empathy and reflection in the attentive viewer. This haunting film, which really deserves at least two viewings, will stay with you and shadow your own ideas of morality and right and wrong. See it.

shistboy Setting: Island of St. Pierre off of France (part of French Republic) in the year 1849-50.Plot: A guillotine named "the widow" is being brought over to the island from France to execute a man who at the beginning of the movie got so drunk he killed a man without any deep human evil as motive. The "problem" is St. Pierre is a gentle community and has no executioners that not even any of their sailors would bring any to the island. No executioner, no head. Madame La (Juliette Binoche) is such a gentle soul living there who believes the man is good and useful to the community but also hidden under the surface is innocently sexually obsessed with the man before she even really meets him which is what much of the community thinks she is leaning toward, especially some bored debutantes which are like counterparts to Juliette's character. Her husband is the warden of the penitentiary (Daniel Auteuil) under Paris headquarters but technically has jurisdiction because they are not in Paris so he allows the condemned to be at his wife's disposal because he supports her and they love each other, which is seen as signs of weakness by the ferocious Paris French Republic putting pressure on the local Republic making such questions arise: do humans make the law or does the law make us? Surely nobody in St. Pierre not having endured the repression of France needs to make examples by collecting heads except for the cowardly governor and admirals who are paid to appear strong. Of course there's a quote (i forget who it belongs), and i'm paraphrasing saying "real strength is having the power to destroy, but choosing not to". Madame La's lust for the condemned is no exception to this rule--her love having conquered all.

writers_reign As a filmmaker Patrice Leconte has yet to disappoint me despite his eclecticism - I went to a large video/DVD outlet specifically to purchase his 'Tango', a delicious black comedy that neither Francis Veber nor Billy Wilder would be ashamed of, and whilst doing so came across this title at a giveaway price which means simply that I bought it sooner rather than later, having already seen and admired it on its initial release five years ago. It's about as far from Tango as it's possible to get but then Leconte's schtick is that he has no schtick and changes from film to film. I first heard of St Pierre when, as a kid, I discovered Damon Runyon and read his short story 'The Lily Of St Pierre' which is not, I suppose, a million miles away from this story. Leconte has shot a wonderfully stately opening in which we move ever so slowly towards Juliette Binoche, standing at the end of a long gallery and occasionally looking out at something below. As we approach her she begins a voice-over flashback of events in St Pierre and we naturally assume she is still there but how wrong can you be. Her story is the stuff of melodrama involving a gentle giant who indisputably murders a man before our eyes then undergoes a rehabilitation that stops just short of sainthood. The problem is that St Pierre is what vaudevillians used to call 'a wide part in the road' and lacks both a guillotine and an executioner which leaves military commander Jean (Daniel Auteuil) one one side and the town council on the other. The council want to play it by the book and keep Neels (Emir Kustarica)in chains in his 4 x 2 cell whilst Jean (and not least his wife Pauline (Juliette Binoche)want to cut him a little slack. As time passes Neels proves not only a superlative handyman but an all-around good egg so that when the guillotine finally arrives no one and his Uncle Max wants to see Neels get it where the chicken got the axe. In Hollywood chances are he would not only have got off but would have rode into the sunset with Binoche and the good wishes of Auteuil to speed them on their way, but this, thank God, is France so EVERYBODY gets it in the neck and in a final masterstroke Binoche is revealed to be not in St Pierre but in Paris watching as Auteuil is executed by firing squad in the courtyard beneath her window - a scene that echoes the end of Casque d'Or when Simone Signoret watches from an upstairs window as Serge Reggianni is also executed. Cavillers will claim that Neels IS a little too good to be true and find the nurturing metaphor in which Neels helps Pauline grow flowers/plants in a barren landscape laboured but overall there is far more to enjoy than to condemn here not least thee superb performances.