Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Curt Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

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???

GeneSiskel Beautifully photographed, scripted, and acted, The Widow of Saint-Pierre pits individual responsibility, redemption, and forgiveness against pettifogging, career-hugging minions of France's shaky Second Republic. Set in 1849, on a group of tiny islands off Newfoundland -- France's last bastion in North America -- the film draws us in with the earthiness of the locals, the stops-out independence of a military captain and his beautiful wife, and the quizzical behavior of a condemned man. It carries us to the conclusion on the strength of the drama, a familiar one of enlightened values endangered, of modernity oppressed. Although the costumes are lovely, it is not remotely a costume drama or a feminine romance. This is the Dreyfus Affair, a half century before the fact. Ten out of ten.

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")

p111 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.