This film seems to be based on the true story of Martin Guerre, the sixteenth century Frenchman who went off to war and came back a changed man. Some of these changes turned out to be so great that his neighbors suspected it wasn't really Martin. It turned out they were right; it was an impostor, Arnaud du Tilh, so clever he even fooled Martin's wife. The real Martin eventually showed up and Arnaud confessed his crime. IN 192 the story was made into a film starring Gerard Depardieu as Arnaud. American audiences will be more familiar with Sommersby (1993), an adaptation of the same story starring Jodie Foster and Richard Gere, set after the American Civil War.
