Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

filmalamosa 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!

JLRMovieReviews 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???

Claudio Carvalho In 1849, in the Archipelago of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, the drunken Ariel Neel Auguste (Emir Kusturica) and his partner Louis Ollivier (Reynald Bouchard) kill for a futile motive (to see if he is fat or just big) the fishing boat captain Coupard (Michel Daigle). Nell, who stabbed the victim, is sentenced to die with his head severed in the guillotine while Louis is sentenced to hard labor. During the transportation to the prison under the custody of Captain Jean (Daniel Auteuil), there is an accident and Louis dies. While spending his days in the cell waiting for the guillotine and the executioner, Neel is invited by the captain's wife Mrs. Pauline (Juliette Binoche) to help her in her garden and becomes her protégé. Later he has a process of rehabilitation helping the locals in minor works and becomes very popular in the island. When he saves the building Café du Nord and her owner from sinking in the sea, his popularity increases and nobody but the governor and politicians of the council wants his death. Neel marries Eleontine Jeanne-Marie, but sooner he is informed that the ship Marie Galante has just left Martinique bringing a guillotine. Now the Governor and politicians need to find an executioner in the population to execute the sentence."La Veuve de Saint-Pierre" is a beautiful dramatization of a story of rehabilitation and intolerance. I do not know whether this event is partially true or not – there are references in Internet to this story but in sites that I can not trust – but this movie is wonderful. The story and screenplay are engaging and very well written with powerful lines; the direction of Patrice Leconte and the performances are top- notch, with Juliette Binoche extremely beautiful and elegant as usual and showing a magnificent chemistry with Daniel Auteuil; the cinematography and costumes are wonderful. Based on my adjectives, it is unnecessary to say that I loved this movie. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "A Viúva de Saint-Pierre" ("The Widow of Saint-Pierre")

noralee "The Widow of St. Pierre (Veuve de Saint-Pierre)" is a very unconventional relationship triangle, with resonances of "Dead Man Walking." Juiliette Binoche is much more interesting and complex here than she is in "Chocolat" as a Lady Bountiful who is pushing redemption with more than a tinge of sensuality.Daniel Auteil who usually plays hapless contemporary men at first looks as out of place in a period costume drama as Harvey Keitel does, but he brings the intellectual and moral sensibility of the 20th century to a true story from an earlier one.Love and devotion--to a spouse and to duty-- are quietly played out against sophisticated political gamesmanship of a small town. The cinematography in Atlantic Canada is beautiful; the pregnant pause close-ups are as claustrophobic as living on the island outpost. It was partly filmed at one of my all-time favorite historic recreations at Louisbourg in Cape Breton, Newfoundland. (originally written 3/18/2001)