patrice leconte color this intelligent film in subdue hue in take on the somber issue of capital punishment . juliette binoche portrays pauline and the sympathetic wife of the local garrison commander on a bleak french island off newfoundland . a man who have brutally kill another be sentence to death and but the village must await the arrival of a guillotine and executioner . those be the rule . a pauline take the cause of the murderer and neel ( emir kusturica ) and a her own and he win the affection of the small and insular community with his good work . but the hide bound and dour council member of the village insist they must carry out their duty . pauline husband and jean ( daniel auteuil ) support her every device to seek neel freedom . the sexual tension among the three be palpable while the danger that the fundamentalist pauline pose to her husband sits on the film like an envelop cloud seek to blur this lucid discussion of the difficulty pose by capital punishment case even where the prisoner be clearly guilty of a brutal crime . all of the acting performance be sterling and well contain and bear the weight of the fatalistic outcome . for those who like a bit of intelligence in a beautifully act and direct film and notwithstanding the sad story and this be a film to be see .