Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

OK. This is not a remake of "carrefour", as many may think. This is the actual story, on which carrefour was based, from 16th century France, it just happens to have been transferred to film after the other adaptation. Go read the book if you're at all interested, it's by Janet Lewis and is called "The Wife of Martin Guerre". The story is based on court documents among other things, and the character names in this film are those of the actual people. Don't get confused- carrefour may have been made before this film, but this is the closer adaptation and, thus, should not be labeled a remake.

After about thirteen or fourteen years I finally was able to see this film again, this time in French with subtitles, not dubbed into German. There was nothing wrong with the German version, the film certainly didn't fail to impress me so much, that I declared this film to be the best Gérard Depardieu has ever done. I think I still have the same opinion, although meanwhile it ties with Les Misérables.Now today I watched it again. I couldn't remember anything really, just parts of scenes and what happened at the end, of course. But then everything came back. The music suddenly seemed familiar, the village, the faces. I still was surprised to see Tcheky Karyo's name in the credits at the end, because I missed him completely, while I recognized Dominique Pinon at once, much younger of course. Again I stood in awe of the costumes and the village scenery. Everything was so convincing and realistic. As if someone had done a time travel and brought back a video. After The Name of the Rose this is the best period film till now. In the art department. But also certainly in acting, writing and directing.Gérard Depardieu and Nathalie Baye deliver performances which are outstanding. Every acting student should watch them, they are masters of their profession. They show emotions which are almost palpable, you feel with them, certainly towards the end, but also during the rest of the time. The script offered them "only" great parts and they created lives out of the printed words. Every gesture, every movement, every look fits and connects the viewer with the story. As if you're in the story, not watching it. There is no doubt whatsoever that this story is real. Even if history should have been a bit different (which I don't know), the story in the film feels real.And I just want to add that everyone who calls M. Depardieu ugly or anything like it, is not only extremely rude but obviously not receptive to any kind of charisma and aura. With actors (as with people in general, right?) looks are not important. Whoever thinks that, should switch from watching films to watching models. There he can get empty beauty.My recommendation is: watch this film. You can hardly spend an evening in a better way. 10 out of 10.

A man suffering from amnesia coming back from war to be confronted with a wife and child...Well we've seen this before and long ago...To be precise in 1938 ,when Curtis Bernardt -who continued his career in America afterward- directed his "carrefour" starring the excellent Charles Vanel and Jules Berry.Here the director -very academic- substituted the Middle Ages for WW1 and presto!an original screenplay! Actually ,and even the scenarists will never confess it it's "carrefour" remade as "Martin Guerre" remade as "Sommersby" .Best part comes from Nathalie Baye,who portrays a woman who could belong to the Middle Ages as well as to our own era .Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu would have outstripped Depardieu, had the script given him the chance to shine.Since I posted my comments,an user wrote that both "carrefour" and "Martin Guerre" came from an incident from the sixteenth century.Perhaps so ,but in my native France,nobody said a single word about that."Carrefour" was based on a John Kafka novel (not to be mistaken for THE Kafka),and as for "Martin", famous scenarist Carrière -who wrote for Luis Bunuel - and director Vigne took all the credits.Jean Tulard,the most erudite historian of the French cinema does not hint at the American novel of Janet Lewis in his "dictionnaire des films".I must add that in France "MG" is not looked upon as the great film it is in America.It's actually a return to the swashbuckler genre that was thriving in the 1955-1965 years in France,a bit more realist perhaps ,to gain the highbrows audience ,but not necessarily better.The real writer was actually Jean de Coras ,conseiller au parlement de Toulouse,whom you can see in the film (Roger Planchon) and who reported the story.

This film was a big reason why Gerard Depardieu was known in Europe as such a great actor. It was somewhat unfortunate that he tried too hard to make it in American films. Nonethless, The Return of Martin Guerre is one of those films that illustrates the mannerisms of fuedalist Europe, examining the powerless of women and the healthy prvalence of "black magic" and what not. What begins as something of a character study turns into an indictment of an era, showing just backward European thought used to be. Well thought out and evenly paced, this is certainly one to watch.