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MovieMail's Review
Originally an actor, Claude Berri began directing in the early 1960s. He was best known for acute social comedies like Le Sex Shop before he founded his own production and distribution companies and emerged as one of the most powerful figures in French cinema, sponsoring pictures from both the mainstream and auteur traditions.
This penchant for the populist and the profound eventually informed his own films, which did much to revive the costume drama that had remained largely out of favour since its savaging by the iconoclasts of the nouvelle vague.
Adapted from Marcel Pagnol's novel 'The Water in the Hills', Jean de Florette is a cinematic tour de force boasting superb performances by Yves Montand and Daniel Auteuil as the scheming Provençal farmers intent on driving newly-arrived hunchback Gérard Depardieu off his land.
Avoiding the chocolate box visuals that too often romanticised British heritage pictures, cinematographer Bruno Nuytten helped Berri establish the pace of life and the beauty of the changing seasons.
The cinematography is even more atmospheric in the sequel, Manon des Sources, in which Auteuil attempts to atone for the wrong done to Emmanuelle Béart and her family.
A pairing of Claude Berri's two famed adaptations from Marcel Pagnol's story of greed, betrayal and revenge. Soaked in the sights and sounds of the Provencal countryside, you can watch these time and again.
