Jean de Florette (1986)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Jean de Florette (1986) – C. Berri

A prestige picture, no doubt, and the images are “painterly” with a masterful use of light.  The French countryside may have never looked better. The acting is also superb -- by Daniel Auteuil, Gerard Depardieu, and Yves Montand -- as you would expect.  Auteuil plays a none-too-bright farmer who, under the sneaky guidance of his uncle (Montand), covets the land inherited by Depardieu which has fertile soil and a hidden water source, a spring, which Auteuil and Montand manage to stop up before he arrives.  So, Depardieu has a Herculean task ahead of him, to create his envisioned rabbit farm (150 rabbits per month) and sustainable “kitchen garden” with marrow enough to feed that many hares – without water.  Or without water independent of the rain that he hopes will fall, but doesn’t because of an epic heatwave and drought.  Such is the plot and it creates enough suspense and tension to carry the film.  However, I felt that we were looking at these characters and their predicaments from the outside and never really from the inside; even the relationship between Auteuil and Depardieu, which grows closer and creates tension that threatens to undermine the Montand/Auteuil plot, never feels particularly “real”.  But these are minor quibbles if one observes this film as the art object it was meant to be.  Engaging but not enthralling – but I say this before seeing “Manon of the Spring”, the sequel and second part of the story, which is clearly anticipated and which may resolve the arc of the story more satisfactorily.