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Jean de Florette

Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Yves Montand, Gerard Depardieu
Director: Claude Berri
Genre: Drama
Year: 1986
Rating: 5 / 5

Reviewed by Guest Scribe Legend

In Jean de Florette, film-watchers will enjoy this charming story set in the countryside near a tiny French village. Thus, the scenery is effective in depicting rural France around the 1920s. Matching the simplicity of the scenery is the simplest of plots. An old man and his nephew dam and try to conceal the presence of a spring on their neighbor's property so that they may acquire the property and use the irrigation for a carnation crop.

One might think this is a horrible thing to do. In fact, the two perpetrators of such duplicity are indeed the protagonists of the story, Ugolin (portrayed wonderfully by Daniel Auteuil) and Cesar, his "Uncle Papet" (Yves Montand). In comes Gerard Depardieu as Jean Cadoret, the hunchback who inherits the neighboring property and who seeks to make a wonderful life for himself, his wife and his daughter Manon. However, his welfare is directly tied to the hidden spring.

What ensues is a story taking place over the course of years. That is how long Ugolin and Cesar are willing to wait to reap the benefits of their trickery. But although plugging the spring for their own benefit seems like such an awful thing to do, the viewer is meant to feel like they are on the villains' side. They are, after all, the protagonists who we cared for long before Jean arrived. What's more, they seem like good people. All they really want to do is buy their neighbor's property at the best possible price.

The lack of this simple spring makes the life of Jean and his family exponentially more difficult. How much difficulty and suffering are Ugolin and Cesar willing to enact on their salt-of-the-earth neighbors before they disclose the presence of the spring? While Ugolin is torn between his friendship with Jean and his desire for the spring, the viewer is likely to find himself or herself betwixt and between the two factions. It should be natural to want Jean and his family to survive without a water source, but for some reason, we want Ugolin to have water for his carnations.

Surprisingly, the film has comedic moments. The difficulty Depardieu's character has without the spring and the lengths he goes through to turn a profit are actually quite humorous, whether they are meant to be or not. For instance, in one scene, Jean uses dynamite to blow a hole in the ground for a cistern. Expecting a gush of water, he runs forward with exuberance. Instead, he receives a generous pelting from a hail of debris. Depardieu wonderfully portrays the uncanny eagerness and zeal of the well-intentioned but hapless Jean, making his character truly pitiful, albeit to comedic proportions.

The ending, while settling the spring issue, is something of a cliffhanger. One questions the repercussions of the characters' actions, the fate of the Cadoret family, and most curiously, who was the silhouette of the man who witnessed Ugolin and Cesar plugging the spring in the first place, and why did he not say anything about it? Without knowing the answers to these questions, Jean de Florette is a wonderful movie, a veritable study of human nature. However, if you do wish to know the "what happens next" of this story, you'll have to turn to the sequel, Manon of the Spring.

Cast:

Certification: Rated PG.
Running Time: 120 minutes.

Additional Info: Internet Movie Database
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