Review of Jean de Florette (1986) by Kenneth L — 26 Mar 2012

I had never even heard of this movie until yesterday, but it turns out I was really missing out. This is one of those films where pretty much everything came together perfectly. Its story is worthy of a great 19th-century realist novel, while it's style and surface reminded me of, of all things, one of Hayao Miyazaki's slower pastoral movies.

The movie tells possibly the most compelling story about farming that I've ever seen. It opens with two old-fashioned farmers (Yves Montand and Daniel Auteuil) living and working in Provence, France, casting an envious eye on a neighbor's land. When the neighbor dies, the land is inherited by his naive, city-dwelling nephew Jean (Gerard Depardieu), who enthusiastically embarks on his new life in the country. He has high hopes for his new farm, but doesn't realize that his neighbors are working to undermine him.

Depardieu gives a great performance as Jean, whose starry-eyed idealism about rural life is gradually worn down over the course of the film. Depardieu elicits a lot of sympathy for the character, even when he's at his most hard-headed and unrealistic. Yves Montand is also very good as Cesar, the wily old farmer who has absolutely no qualms about screwing over the city-slicker, yet does not come off as particularly malicious about it. The most complicated role goes to Daniel Auteuil, as the younger farmer who has to constantly lie to Jean even as he is ostensibly helping him out.

The movie, which won several BAFTA awards including Best Film (though curiously failed to get an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Picture), is beautifully shot and paced by director Claude Berri. So many of the images are wide-shots that capture the atmosphere and look of the southern French farmland, all in bright and sunny cinematography. There are lots and lots of short scenes contributing to a story that takes place over about two years, and yet the scenes never feel too short or schematic. The pacing isn't hurried, but never drags either. The screenplay, from a novel by Marcel Pagnol, fully develops the characters and allows the conflicts to unfold naturally. The overall result is a film that isn't flashy or overwrought in any way, but tells an interesting story in a manner that feels exactly appropriate to that story. The only complaint one might have is that the movie actually ends with an opening for a second part, but that second part was shot at the same time and released as another film, "Manon of the Springs," which hopefully I will be able to get to soon.