I was fascinated by this film--probably because I am a history teacher and teach about WWI (among other topics). But I wonder if most other people would really care about the plot. You see, it's about the aftermath of WWI and the setting concerns soldiers sifting through the French countryside trying to find and identify all the bodies. The officer in charge is a bit fixated on all this and into his obsessive little world come two ladies who are looking for a husband and a fiancé who have been missing since 1917. The attention to details in the film is interesting and there are many little touches that make it a must see for history lovers. However, I must also point out that for me, the relationships that develop and unfold during the movie don't always work all that well. Plus, another recent French film dealing with the same topic (A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT) is a vastly superior film. It would be great if you could see them both, but if you only want to see one film, see A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT--it's better in most every way.

Philippe Noiret plays a military bureaucrat who is meticulously trying to catalogue the casualties of WWI. He and two women cross paths during the excavation of a train that was buried in a tunnel by German explosives. This would make for a great existential movie, but it's all talk talk talk. The dialogue is endless, and, with the long running time, the whole picture seems that way, too. The film would be much more powerful if it demonstrated its themes more visually. Instead, the emotions come off as somewhat flatter than they deserve to be. The production is also poor; it feels like it was made for television. And the musical score is so weak it takes the film down a peg itself. It's still worth watching, but I think it really could have been a lot better.

I take issue with some of the negative reviews regarding the storyline. It works. The superb acting of Noiret is better than usual and he's great when he's merely being ordinary. This is a powerful film about the nihilism following the end of la grande guerre. The character of Noiret, a man torn by complex emotional conditions identifying the unidentified, finds himself torn between his own moral code, his emerging love for a widow looking for her dead husband, his repulsion at the profiteering capitalism of industrialists and his secret knowledge of the dead man's bigamy. The intensity of Gallic emotions are often misunderstood by us Americans (too much English influence for my tastes, je suppose) but this is an excellent film with all the necessary elements for a classic. See it. Decide for yourself!

A wonderfully acted and well written drama set in France in the aftermath of World War One. It's a romance about the importance of memory in morality and love and coming to terms with loss on an individual and national scale.