‘Colonel Chabert’

Set in the early 19th Century, “Colonel Chabert’s” visual centerpiece is its re-creation of 1807’s Battle of Eylau, one of Napoleon’s costliest triumphs. Top cinematographer-turned-director Yves Angelo is as interested in the interior life of his people as in their appearance. Based on a Balzac story, the period-perfect 1994 “Chabert” begins 10 years after Eylau, with a strange and distant man (Gerard Depardieu, pictured) declaring at a Paris lawyer’s office that he is Col. Chabert, one of Napoleon’s favorites, thought killed at Eylau. What Chabert wants is to recover his property from his formidable former wife (Fanny Ardant), now the Countess Ferraud. Is this man truly Chabert or a deluded impostor? (Cinemax Wednesday at 8 p.m.)