One of my all time favorites.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Blistering performances.

This movie takes place in 1849 on St. Pierre. It is about a murderer who committed a murder in a drunken state not really knowing what he was doing. Such a person might get 8 years or something these days. But you have to remember that in 1848 you were sent to Australia in chains if you stole a loaf of bread. The wife of the captain in charge of holding the condemned man feels he should be rehabilitated and let loose. The whole movie becomes a treatise on unfair penal sentences.My problem with the movie is not that I think the man deserved to be executed, but rather the one sided manipulative propaganda approach used by the director.The movie degenerates into endless obvious manipulation. Every facial expression in every crowd is controlled to show the appropriate emotion. There are constant cuts to the ship bringing the guillotine. Suddenly everyone loves this guy no one will be the executioner etc... It is not believable.A huge part of the problem is that the actor playing the condemned (Emir Kusturica) is a disheveled large hulking unattractive middle aged cave man who just doesn't work in the role--negative charisma? Kusturica's chemistry is just wrong (maybe bad acting?)--for some reason there is absolutely nothing sympathetic about him walking around with a plaintive look. A younger more handsome man who could act could very well have made the movie work.The Captain and his wife are Gods descended from some morally superior heaven we should all aspire to.The whole message thing is just too heavy handed. The part in the beginning where they throw rocks at the prisoners is more like real human nature. This movie is terrible which is a pity.I liked Patrice La Count's movie-- M. Hire-- and decided to watch more of his films unfortunately the others are also too much socially relevant treatises but this is by the far the worst one. REDICULE at least had large parts of it that were entertaining this film had nothing of the sort---unrelenting politically correct hammering against the death penalty etc etc etc...It is a pity because the actors and Le Conte bring a lot to this--however no doubt about it Kusturica ruins it. He should stick to directing.DO NOT RECOMMEND!

On a dark night, in the mysterious fog, in a small village on an island off the coast of France, two very drunk men knifed a fat man, just to see if he's fat or just big. The men are caught and questioned. One is killed in an accident, while being sent to jail. The other, sentenced to hang, is imprisoned. But, when it poses a problem to hang him, the law begins to reconsider. You see, they don't have a guillotine and who knows when one will get there. In the meantime, he is released, pending execution, of course. And, suddenly he becomes a model citizen, saving the church from near demolition when being moved from one place to another, and saving the life of someone leaning up to it. This plays out like one of those quaint little British films where their lives were pretty quiet until something fanciful and unique happens to spruce up their lives. The prisoner is of course put back in jail from time to time, but it's the military captain's wife, played by Juliette Binoche, who takes to him and is very sympathetic to his situation. The moments they share, when she visits him in jail, are very personally felt. But, her husband, the captain, is put in a very awkward position. As other reviewers have said, this movie deals with a person's salvation, his worth to himself and to others. A movie you just have to see to believe. I didn't think I was going to like it, as I had put off watching it. But the combination of the town's officials talking amongst themselves about their plight and the heartfelt connection between Juliette and the prisoner balance each other very well and make the movie a very moving and humorous experience, one you'll not forget anytime soon. But then who is the widow of Saint-Pierre, you ask???

This is a wonderful film. It captures characters in a profound dilemma and shows a study of the bureaucratic mind that will crush a truly good man for the ends of both personal advancement and political correctness. It is as much a statement on the evils of mindless bureaucracy as any I have seen. It is also a fine story of personal redemption and the decency that can allow it to thrive. I could not but think of such works as Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment or such films as Schindler's List, because I am fascinated by the portrayals of seemingly ordinary people put in situations of fundamental moral choice.

It seems to me that this movie was made as an attack on the death penalty. While I have no problem with the use of the death penalty, I strongly agree with the major contention of the film. That is, once a person is sentenced, by the time they are put to death a lot of time has passed and they may not be the same person--and may no longer deserve to die. In the case of the film, the delay was BRIEF compared to our modern penal system, as the delay looked to be about two years. During this interim time, the convicted man did so much to help those around him that there was little will, except among some idiots in the local government, to execute him. The film is very interesting and gives us insight into life on the isolated island of St. Pierre (a French possession near New Foundland) and because the story, it seems, is based on a true story! I liked the film because it dared to be different, had something to say and featured excellent acting and dialog--and this combination definitely doesn't happen very often.