MANON OF THE SPRING
[**oblique spoilers**]
(subtitled)
A film review by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1988 Jeff Meyer
As anyone who has read my Seattle Film Festival reviews knows, I am a prejudiced fellow. And one of my biggest prejudices is French films. I point to their comedies and groan; I point to their dramas and grouse about characters who I couldn't give a damn about philosophizing for hours on end about their own petty problems (at least MY DINNER WITH ANDRE had Wally Shawn). Sure, it's an ignorant generality to make, and I generally go to a film regardless of national origin, but if I'm at the Festival and there's two films of interest and one of them's French...
What I *will* say for French films is that when they make an exception to my bigotry, they *really* make an exception. DIVA was an addiction for me -- I think I saw it more times than STAR WARS. I played LA WALLY to all hours of the night. I looked around for those silly blue liquid slo-mo wave machines. The guy in the white Rolls updated The Lone Ranger to a form I could actually enjoy again. It was one of those films that marks a year, rather than visa-versa.
Well, I just completed the two-part adaptation of Pagnol's WATER OF THE HILLS, and while I'm not infatuated with it, I am enamored of it, not to mention being blown away and in a state of utmost admiration -- this is an amazing film, and you should not miss it. As many of you know, MANON OF THE SPRING is the second part of a two-film story begun in JEAN DE FLORETTE. I saw the first film a year and a half ago at the Seattle Film Festival, and was impressed and moderately entertained with its lush photography and its demonstration of how the smallest evils could be the worst. MANON takes the basis of the plot in JEAN DE FLORETTE and amplifies the events of the first film into one of the finest films I have seen this year. PASCALI'S ISLAND was classic tragedy being played basically on one instrument (Ben Kingsley); in MANON, the tragedy is a symphony of photography, music, direction by Claude Berri, and the featured performer being Yves Montand. It is romantic, it is heart-rending, it gives you characters whom you feel the full spectrum of emotions for during the film's length: hatred, contempt, pity, and sympathy. The layers of irony in this film are laid one atop another until the entire story of JEAN DE FLORETTE has been rotated 180 degrees, and the phrase "what goes around, comes around" is etched in your memory alongside the characters.
The acting is good on almost all fronts: Emanuelle Beart as the grown daughter of the hunchback Jean de Florette, who has her revenge on those responsible for her father's death in ways both ironic and innocent, and Daniel Auteuill as the nephew of Cesar whose adherence to his uncle's policies comes back to haunt him in a multitude of ways. But the performance that I will always associate with this film, with both films, is Yves Montand as Cesar, a casually cruel man cursed with seeing his great sin turned against him in every manner possible. Impersonally, one would say that he gets what he deserves in the end, but this film and Montand delineate his character so well that I was left thinking that *no* one deserved this kind of fate.
But the quality of this film is not limited to the actors. The photography uses the wide screen to its full effect, and it lingers on people and events and the gorgeous scenery with genius and often with perfection. Berri directs a wedding scene towards the end which is amazing; its impact to the plot had me holding my breath, but the way it was shot -- the wedding party having their picture taken, their attention arrested by Cesar's approach -- is one of those bits of cinematography that will be associated with the very best, like the Amish rising from the wheat in the opening of WITNESS or James Dean on the windmill in GIANT. It has all the beauty of a painting, but is strengthened by the fluid nature of film -- something which is uncommon in the cinema today, where motion seems to be a reason to film in and of itself. The music score is as beautiful as the camera work; DOES ANYONE KNOW IF IT'S AVAILABLE IN THE U.S. YET?!!
Whatever else you've heard, see MANON with the following prerequisites:
1) See it in a wide-screen print.
2) See it with a good sound system.
3) See JEAN DE FLORETTE first. Yes, it's understandable on its
own, but the emotional impact MANON has after seeing its
precursor is not something to be missed.
I came away from MANON OF THE SPRING feeling as if I had seen a parable about the wages of sin precisely and beautifully illustrated, using characters both real and larger-than-life. Pride, greed, insensitivity to your neighbor ... all run through MANON as much more than concepts or morality. The portrayal of Hell that I have always found most appropriate is a state that men and women build for themselves with their own actions; these two films reflect the type of common cruelty that is no less mean because it is widespread, and then pen the originators in with their own crimes, caging them with the bones of their victim. It is tragedy, and entertainment, and (yes) art, and I had a damn fine time watching it.
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
INTERNET: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM
Manual UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, microsoft}!fluke!moriarty
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