User reviews

A man goes to battle and kills other men while his woman stays home and makes love to other men. Wargnier's memories of his mother who starved for love and passion while her husband served in French colonies at war, is art soap with two of the greatest contemporary French actors making it worth the while.

Régis Wargnier loves to take his characters all around the planet(see also "Indochine" or "man to man" in the pygmies land;probably because of his own childhood).He also loves Douglas Sirk :no less than two extracts of his movies are included:"battle hymn" (1957)the moral of which was rather dubious ,and the great "written on the wind " (brief extract where Dorothy Malone "dances her dad" to death )Emmanuelle even imitates the American star ,in a blood red dress.Funny,I had been thinking of Sirk before his extracts were shown ;Jeanne could be a Sirkian heroine and the screenplay is primarily a melodrama ;the genre can produce masterpieces (Sirk,Stahl,Minnelli) but it takes a lot a madness,something more than this academic directing.The movie looks like a blueprint for miniseries the episodes of which being " meeting at the station" "the soldier has come home" " lost in a devastated land" " back in Paris and daddy's gone away again" etc .All in all,the film does not equal the sum of its numerous parts .With a husband whose spouse is more the army than Emmanuelle Béart ,who could blame this "sinner" ?Best idea is the romantic ending but it's botched ! See it for the two principals ,two of the best actors of today.

This is Regis Wargnier's memories about his mother. We can see him as a boy, sharing moments of joy and blues. Emmanulle Beart was criticized for playing the part of Jeanne, a woman that could not remain faithful to her husband, always in the war. The loneliness was the reason of the unfaithfulness. Daniel Auteuil is unforgettable as the patient husband always forgiving the wife's sins.

Beautiful...sensitive and highly recommended