Manon des Sources (1986)

07 Sunday Apr 2019

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Claude Berri, Daniel Auteuil, Drama, Emmanuelle Béart, Favourite movie, France, Literary adaptation, Marcel Pagnol, Provence, Review, Yves Montand

aka Manon of the Spring

D: Claude Berri / 113m

Cast: Yves Montand, Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Béart, Hippolyte Girardot, Margarita Lozano, Yvonne Gamy, Ticky Holgado

Now a young woman, Manon (Béart), the daughter of Jean Cadoret aka Jean de Florette, lives with a couple of elderly squatters, and tends to a herd of goats. Ugolin Soubeyran (Auteuil) has a successful business growing carnations on a nearby farm. Along with his uncle, César (Montand), Ugolin has purchased the land Manon’s father owned, and they have restored the spring they blocked so long ago, and which contributed to his death. Ugolin becomes attracted to Manon, but she rebuffs him; however, his attraction becomes an obsession. At the same time, she becomes interested in Bernard (Girardot), a schoolteacher who has recently arrived in the village. When Manon overhears two of the villagers talking about the spring, she realises that everyone knew and no one did anything to stop the Soubeyrans. When providence reveals to her the source of the village’s water supply, she blocks it up in the same way that her father’s spring was stopped. Soon the villagers are panicked and ready to listen when Manon publicly accuses the Soubeyrans of their crimes, but this leads to greater and still greater tragedy…

Shot back-to-back with its predecessor Jean de Florette (1986), Manon des Sources both extends and completes that movie’s narrative arc while telling its own story at the same time. It retains many of the first movie’s attributes and stylistic flourishes – Provence still looks absolutely gorgeous thanks to Bruno Nuytten’s exquisite cinematography – and co-writer (along with Gérard Brach) and director Claude Berri continues to ensure that the characters and not the plot remain the central focus of the movie. Manon is something of a wild child, able to live off the land and not entirely comfortable around others. She says very little throughout the movie, but when she does, her words count for something and are layered with meaning. She’s fiercely independent, and beautiful too – it’s no wonder Ugolin becomes infatuated with her. Urged by his uncle to marry (and thereby keep the family name alive), Ugolin’s feelings for Manon take the story to a very dark place indeed, but it’s a measure of Auteuil’s haunting and finely detailed performance that it’s easy to feel sympathy for Ugolin, even though he’s jointly responsible for the death of Manon’s father. As he sinks further and further into despair at being rejected, Auteuil shows Ugolin’s feelings of grief and sadness and above all, loneliness, as they overwhelm him, and prove too much to bear.

Our feelings about Ugolin also extend to César, as Pagnol’s tale widens in scope to include a revelation that puts everything into cold, heart-rending perspective. César’s pride and arrogance and greed do indeed go before a fall, but it’s one that is so spectacular that, as with Ugolin, the impact of his villainous behaviour is erased by the enormity of the retribution that engulfs him. Watching Montand as he shows César slowly coming to terms with the full import of what he’s done, and where his machinations have got him, is a masterclass in screen acting. Over both movies, César has almost been a secondary character, pulling strings and sitting back while his plans come to fruition, but here Berri reveals him to be the driving force of the narrative across all four hours, a man whose pathological need to maintain his family’s influence has ensured his downfall. The irony can’t be missed, but Montand handles it with subtlety and aplomb, just as Berri has handled the material throughout. By remaining faithful to Marcel Pagnol’s two-volume novel The Water of the Hills, Berri and his cast have ensured every nuance and moment of significance has been replicated with care and sincerity. The result is a movie that is every bit as good as its predecessor, but which does so on its own terms – and rightly so.

Rating: 9/10 – a fitting conclusion to the story begun in Jean de Florette, Manon des Sources takes its villains and makes them tragic figures doomed by the short-sightedness of their egos, while also introducing a heroine whose resourcefulness mirrors their own machinations (and there’s irony there too); as the second part of a duology, there’s a lot of pressure on it to succeed, but Berri et al have done a tremendous job in making this just as impressive (if not more so) than its precursor, and one of the finest examples of French heritage cinema that’s ever been made.

Jean de Florette (1986)

06 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Claude Berri, Daniel Auteuil, Drama, Favourite movie, France, Gérard Depardieu, Literary adaptation, Provence, Review, Yves Montand

D: Claude Berri / 120m

Cast: Yves Montand, Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil, Elisabeth Depardieu, Margarita Lozano, Ernestine Mazurowna

Returning home after military service in World War I, Ugolin Soubeyran (Auteuil) uses the land he has to grow carnations. When his first crop fetches a good price at market, his uncle César (Montand) decides Ugolin’s project needs to be expanded, and they make an attempt at buying the neighbouring land. However, their attempt is unsuccessful, and when the owner dies, the land passes to his nephew, Jean Cadoret (Depardieu). Jean arrives with his wife, Aimée (Depardieu) and young daughter Manon (Mazurowna), and with a plan to make the land profitable by breeding rabbits and feeding them on cucurbit. But César and Ugolin have stopped up a spring that would provide plenty of water to Jean’s land, and he is forced to rely on another one that is some distance away, as well as rainfall to fill a cistern. But the rain doesn’t come, and further problems cause Jean’s endeavour to begin to fail. He’s prompted to sell by the Soubeyrans but remains stubborn in his determination to succeed. Deciding to dig a well, Jean, whose health has been deteriorating from all the physical labour, suffers a devastating injury when his use of dynamite has an unexpected outcome…

The first thing to mention about Jean de Florette (and the movie’s trump card if you like) is Bruno Nuytten’s stunning cinematography. This is a beautifully shot movie, with the Provence locations standing out as a vibrant, immersive background to a tale of greed and treachery, and one family’s efforts to ruin another family out of concern for their failing influence in the local community (Ugolin is the last of the Soubeyrans and not exactly husband material). César and Ugolin are villains in both the grand and parochial sense, using their reputation to hoodwink both Jean and their own friends into believing their actions are borne out of honest philanthropy, when the opposite is true. It’s their machinations that drive the narrative towards a deliberately unhappy ending (though it helps to know there’s a sequel to help put things right), and though their scheming is calculated, and their motives quite callous, nevertheless they’re still characters with a tremendous depth to them, from César’s arrogance borne out of pride in the family name, to Ugolin desperately seeking affirmation from his uncle at every turn. Both are driven by desires they’re unable to articulate, and both are trapped by the expectations associated with the family name.

Montand and Auteuil are magnificent as the treacherous Soubeyrans, and they’re matched by Depardieu as the tax collector and “unfortunately, by God’s will… a hunchback” Jean de Florette (Florette is his mother’s name, and what the locals call him). Always positive, his determination to succeed seeing him through setbacks that would crush the will of other men, Jean is a tragic figure writ large against the Provence countryside. It’s heartbreaking to see him try and fail over and over again, but Depardieu avoids any pity for Jean’s refusal to give in, and makes his efforts courageous in the face of certain defeat. You know it’s going to end badly for Jean but thanks to Berri’s assured direction, and a faithful adaptation of Marcel Pagnol’s novel (by Berri and Gérard Brach), the viewer can’t help but hope that one of Jean’s schemes to succeed will come to fruition and save the day. With the villagers looking on (with some amusement), and the Soubeyrans waiting to capitalise on his inevitable misfortune, Jean’s predicament anchors the second half of the movie and allows a number of seemingly minor plot points to be revealed that will have a lasting impact on the events depicted in Manon des Sources (1986). You could argue that Jean de Florette is just a two hour teaser for its sequel, but it has its own self-contained story, and it has an emotional quality that the sequel doesn’t replicate – because it too has its own self-contained story. Either way, this is a true classic of French cinema, and one of the most beautiful movies ever made.

Rating: 9/10 – with its rich, lustrous cinematography (the Vaucluse department of Provence has never looked so vivid), Jean de Florette is a triumph of storytelling, acting, direction, production design – everything in fact, that goes to make it one of the most sublime movie experiences ever released; heartfelt and sincere, stirring and emotive, it’s a feast for the senses in all respects, and as authentic a representation of post-World War I Provence as you’re ever likely to find.

British Classics: Love Actually (2003)

24 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Comedy, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Liam Neeson, London, Love, Provence, Review, Richard Curtis, Romance, Xmas

D: Richard Curtis / 135m

Cast: Rowan Atkinson, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Colin Firth, Gregor Fisher, Martin Freeman, Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Andrew Lincoln, Laura Linney, Heike Makatsch, Kris Marshall, Martine McCutcheon, Lúcia Moniz, Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Joanna Page, Alan Rickman, Rodrigo Santoro, Emma Thompson, Billy Bob Thornton

In the weeks leading up to Xmas, several friends and relatives who are all connected to each other find themselves dealing with love in (almost) all its various forms. David (Grant) is the newly elected Prime Minister who finds himself attracted to Natalie (McCutcheon), a junior member of the staff at 10 Downing Street. Mark (Lincoln) is the best friend of Peter (Ejiofor), who has just married Juliet (Knightley) – who Mark is secretly in love with. Writer Jamie (Firth), after being cheated on by his girlfriend, heads to Provence to write his latest novel, and falls in love with his housekeeper, Aurélia (Moniz). David’s sister, Karen (Thompson), begins to suspect that her husband, Harry (Rickman), is having an affair with someone at his work. Meanwhile, one of his other employees, Sarah (Linney), has feelings for her colleague, Karl (Santoro), but doesn’t know how to broach them. Daniel (Neeson), a friend of Karen’s, is a recent widower who’s stepson Sam (Brodie-Sangster) reveals his own life for a girl at his school. John (Freeman) and Judy (Page) are body doubles working on a movie, while Colin (Marshall) dreams of visiting the U.S. where he believes his being British will attract lots of women.

The glue that binds all these characters together, even more so than writer/director Richard Curtis’s excessive generosity in connecting them in the first place, is the character of Billy Mack (Nighy), an aging singer making a comeback with a cover version of The Troggs’ Love Is All Around, retitled Christmas Is All Around. Whenever the movie is spending time with the other characters, Billy is often there in the background, his cheesy monstrosity of a Xmas record and louche behaviour a much needed antidote to the surfeit of sentimentality and saccharine romanticism that peppers the narrative from start to finish. Even the less “happy” storylines – Harry and Karen, Sarah and Karl, Juliet and Mark – are bittersweet entries that are layered with poignancy and hopefulness. But that’s the point of the movie: it’s a positive message of love for everyone. Even if a marriage founders for a moment (Harry and Karen), or love is a case of wrong place, wrong time (Mark and Juliet), or even if it never gets off the ground at all (Sarah and Karl), all the clichés are in place: love will find a way, love is all you need, love conquers all… That Curtis holds it all together and still manages to make it work despite all the plot contrivances and rampant wish fulfillment that threaten to derail it several times over, is a testament to his confidence in the material.

Of course, he’s aided by an accomplished ensemble cast who rise to their individual challenges with gusto and no small amount of charm. Grant’s dance routine, Rickman’s hangdog expressions, Nighy’s inappropriate smirking – all of these character beats and more help to make the movie a feast of feelgood moments that linger like treasured memories long after it’s ended. Curtis may have laid on the romance with a trowel (sometimes it’s like being battered over the head with a dozen red roses), but this is a very, very funny movie with endlessly quotable lines (Colin: “Stateside I am Prince William without the weird family”), visual gags aplenty, and the ability to spring a number of clever narrative sleights of hand when you’re least expecting them. It’s an appealing, but unsophisticated slice of romantic fairy tale excess that’s bolstered by pin-sharp humour, terrific performances, and a refreshing awareness that it all takes place in a fantasy-based “reality” of Curtis’s devising (where else would the US President get such a public dressing down for his behaviour?). Fifteen years on, it remains a perennial favourite at Xmas, and despite an initial lack of enthusiasm on the part of critics, a movie that has transcended any criticism – deserved or otherwise – to become one of those rare movies that can be enjoyed over and over again, and which never seems to grow old or stale with repeated viewings.

Rating: 8/10 – a movie that tells nine separate stories and which does justice to all of them, Love Actually is a moving, thoughtful, and emotional look at love itself and what it means for a variety of people in a variety of situations and circumstances (though notably, not anyone who’s LGBT); comic and romantic in equal measure, it’s a movie you can fall in love with easily and unreservedly (and any movie that contains Jeanne Moreau in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo has got to be getting things more right than wrong).