The French director François Ozon is a master of the unreliable narrative. In the House (2013), Angel (2007) and Under the Sand (2001) are brilliant exercises in the way that film can be used to manipulate meaning. His latest, Frantz, might be his most ambiguous yet: it is certainly his most moving.

The time is the immediate aftermath of the First World War, the place a small town in Germany. A young woman, Anna (Paula Beer), mourns her fiancé, Frantz, killed in the trenches. She lives with the dead boy’s parents, a local doctor (Ernst Stötzner) and his wife (Marie Gruber), both grief-stricken by their loss: indeed, the whole town seems bowed beneath a giant weight of sorrow. One day, Anna finds a stranger laying flowers at Frantz’s grave. This is Adrien (Pierre Niney), a Frenchman who claims he and Frantz were good friends in Paris before the war. She takes him to meet the parents, who welcome him and delight in the stories he tells about their beloved son.