The early scenes in the muddy French trenches of World War I are upsetting as we see five condemned soldiers being led to their decreed executions with dim hope for last minute clemency. They are not to be shot, but to be sent out of the trenches into no-man’s-land and virtual certain death under enemy barrages. One by one, by means of narration and flashbacks, we learn who these men are and what has led them to impending doom.

One is Manech, played with dreamy innocence by Gaspard Ulliel, who has been in love with Mathilde (Tautou). Young lovers devoted to one another, Manech and Mathilde were cruelly separated by the war. Mathilde, having suffered from polio, limps, which doesn’t stop her from hobbling frantically through the fields to reach a point in the road before the car carrying her lover off to the army. She as a habit of nurturing such little superstitions as if she gets to the bend in the road before the car does it means he’ll come back safely. Touches like that make parts of the film a bit too corny, but they are minor ones in the grand scheme of the story.

When it appears that Manech has been killed, Mathilde refuses to believe it and hires a detective to help in her determination to learn what has really happened on the battlefield. No matter what the bad news, she stubbornly persists in her investigation. As it deepens, we learn of evil machinations that have taken place. Another character is introduced, a woman named Tina (Marion Cotillard), who kills those on whom she has reason to wreak vengeance.

Although the sprawling story is geared to the undying love Mathilde has for Manech, this doesn’t mask its power as an anti-war film. The fighting in World War I was peculiar to its time and methods, but seeing the agony of the men in the line of fire made me think of the servicemen being killed and wounded in Iraq. War is war and the aim is to stay alive under horrendous conditions.