JEAN DE FLORETTE
A film review by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1987 Jeff Meyer
Seen at the Seattle Film Festival: JEAN de FLORETTE (French, 1986) Director: Claude Berri Screenwriters: Claude Berri, Gerard Brach; based on a novel by Marcel Pagnol Cast: Yves Montand, Gerard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil, Elisabeth Depardieu Subtitled
This is the first half of what is being described as a "French Epic"; it is an adaptation of a fairly well-known French novel about the efforts of two bachelor farmers, an older man and his rat-faced nephew, who covet the spring on the land of their neighbor. After the neigbor is killed by the older farmer in an angry confrontation that is made to look like an accident, the two farmers' plans are thwarted by Jean de Florette, the last heir of their neighbor and a hunch-backed tax-collector who has moved to the farm with his wife and young daughter to "return to nature" and start a farm. Unfortunately for them, the two farmers have hidden the spring on their land, and are working behind the scenes to make their moves a difficult one.
This film had several features of interest for me. It is about men and women who work the land, and thus needs a director and a cameraman who can communicate the beauty and hardships associated with farming. In that they have succeeded admirably, using color to its full potential and employing wide shots of the land. It is also a reminder of how cruelty can be generated by lack of actions as well as actions, and how villainy is frequent among the petty, and for petty reasons. The two farmers are not sadists or vice lords; they remind us more of the comic foils one finds in a mild English comedy. They are absurd and sympathetic--they are even worried about the neighbors they are attempting to force out. Yet the consequences of their meddling are no less tragic.
This is not a complex story, and it is somewhat long; but the concentration on the land made it interesting to me for the majority of the film. I also want to see the sequel, MANON DES SOURCES, when it is released in the United States. An elderly French woman who sat next to me in the audience said she had read the book when she was a child, and felt that the filmmakers had been very faithful, so those of you who liked the book have a recommendation other than mine.
For those who didn't read the book (like moi), C+ ($3.50 movie).
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
INTERNET: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM
Manual UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, hplsla, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews