Return of Martin Guerre

Return of Martin Guerre

When it comes to film, there are many examples which would be considered, "historically accurate" to the time that the film is portraying. Many films such as Glory, Gettysburg, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Gods and Generals to name a few in my opinion, accurately portray the events and situations in history. When dealing with the french film, Le Retour de Martin Guerre, many aspects of the Movie that I found are historically accurate, while some of the situations portrayed, are unfortunately not.

Le Retour de Martin Guerre is a film that takes place in the peasant town of Artigat in the 1500's. A very young man at the time, named Martin Guerre, also married a very young woman at the time, who was named Bertrande de Rols. The issue that pops up is the fact that this marriage between Martin Guerre and Bertrand de Rols was an arranged marriage. Granted, this was a very common occurrence back in the 1500's, which is historically accurate, but I believe that the marriage, and certain other situations, in my opinion, are the reasons why this whole situation of Martin Guerre leaving, occurred in the first place.

The marriage was arranged to secure agreements between the two families that were involved, which included social, economic, and business arrangements. These actions were not very uncommon either back in the 1500's, but most of the time, like in Martin's and Bertrand's case, did not go along very well. To be honest, Martin Guerre was not a very good husband at all. Very abusive, and neglecting, Bertrand had to suffer through a lot of issues because of this arranged marriage.

Still a very young Martin, who was now around 24 years old at the time, essentially ran away from his village, leaving his wife ,child, parents, and his home behind. For eight years Bertrande raised her son, lived, worked, and ultimately waited. She was neither a wife, nor essentially a widow. She was stuck in between two opposing worlds.

When it comes to history, the act of marriage that is portrayed in this case is unfortunately very realistic in how it accurately occurred in the 1500's. When you ask someone and what they would think of marriage in the 1500's, I would assume they would say that marriage was a very sacred bond between two people, and above all, very religiously supported. But in reality, it was the complete opposite. The attitude toward marriages in the 1500's were essentially business contracts, or social agreements in reality, which in my opinion, was unfortunate. Fortunately for the film, it is accurately portrayed pretty well.

The next crucial aspect of the film is when the imposter of Martin Guerre, whose real name is Arnaud du Tilh, showed up at the village, eight years after the real Martin Guerre had left in 1556. Friends, family, and Bertrande accepted Arnaud as the real Martin