Good film, slightly overrated

Rating: 8/10 (27 December 2017)

I watched this film 20+ years after its original release. I did have some apprehensions - e.g. I thought it was "about the war"; and I knew for a fact it was very long.
Overall, it has aged well. To my relief, the plot is not so much about the war, but rather about civilian people swept up in the war.
Was the movie too long? It was. Not necessarily boring or dragged out sort of long, mind you. But I do think the tale could have been told just as powerfully in 90 minutes as it was in 162: The man with no face - use him to frame the story; lose the rest. Punjabi guy searching for landmines and/or washing his hair? I am all for a good interracial romp, onscreen and off, but really -- what did he add to the story? Cut. The Willem Dafoe character? Cut.
Lastly, and not to be a complete heretic: I love French cinema, and I can see how the part-Slavic La Binoche may have been a revelation to 90s US audiences, what with her Deneuve-esque power of projection coupled with a Bette Davis-style ability to "do nothing" in the face of great turmoil. Personally I found her role in this film to be one of a glorified narrator, whose presence could have been confined to under ten minutes. And not only that. In truth, some of her zany but wholesome antics, midway through, set in the ruins of the bombed-out cloister, actually brought to mind the words "Nokia. Connecting People". Sorry; they did.
Ultimately, all of the above contributes little to, and greatly pales in comparison with, the main story, acted out solidly by Ralph Fiennes and rivetingly, refreshingly yet timelessly by Kristin Scott Thomas. This is where the wow factor is; we didn't need the distractions which only served to bloat this saga to nearly three hours in length.