first and let me confess that i have not read this particular balzac novel and so maybe i be direct my cavil unfairly at director and editor . still my experience with balzac in other story be that he write a a realist and not an obscurantist . this be most certainly a film worth one while and but one be leave sorely puzzle at the end . be the colonel a fraud and use by the lawyer for his own end ( or for whose beyond himself ) while or be the colonel not a fraud and but use a aforesaid by the lawyer while or do the lawyer truly try to serve the honest colonel . the director and or or the editor appear to me to have deliberately obscure these question and which doesn not seem like balzac and the realist . at the same time the film do an excellent job of delineate the character and if not their motif and and the cast and production be superb . that open battlefield scene be bind to haunt one dream . still and one wonder at the all too common penchant among contemporary film maker to favor ambiguity above all else . weren not the problem and motif of all these character complicate enough for yves angelo .