Leaving September 1

Directed by François Ozon | 114 mins | 2016
Based on Ernst Lubitsch’s sole dramatic talkie, "Broken Lullaby" (1932), Ozon’s finely wrought period piece unfolds in Quedlinburg, Germany, where Anna (Paula Beer) is mourning the death of her fiance, a soldier killed in the Great War. When a stranger—a Frenchman (Pierre Niney)—comes to lay flowers at his grave, claiming to have known the deceased, matters of factional allegiance naturally give way to curiosity, and tenderness.