The first of Claude Berri’s two-film adaptation of Marcel Pagnol’s novel The Water of the Hills, Jean de Florette begins in the aftermath of World War I, though it would be easy not to realize it. The Provençal countryside is a vestige of the Old World not yet swept away by the conflict. People still get around mostly by horse and wagon, wear clothes knit by locals, and engage in farming and craftwork methods that have surely remained unchanged for centuries. Even the film’s underlying plot, of farmer Ugolin Soubeyran (Daniel Auteuil) and his uncle, César (Yves Montand), trying to amass land in order to grow carnations, suggests a nod to the tulip mania of the 16th century.
The Soubeyans’ plan to maximize their land holdings rapidly spirals into the kind of hapless but grim crime wave worthy of the Coen brothers. Attempting first to buy out neighbor Pique-Bouffigue’s (Marcel Champel) plot of hilly farmland, Ugolin ends up accidentally killing the man, then deliberately plugs the land’s water well when the farm passes to a relative, a kindly hunchback named Jean (Gérard Depardieu) who brings his wife (Élisabeth Depardieu) and young daughter, Manon (Ernestine Mazurowna), to his new home in the hopes of raising hares.
Unaware of his neighbors’ subterfuge, Jean finds the land difficult to irrigate. And despite his friendliness, he meets a cold reception from the nearby villagers owing to both his physical deformity and efforts by Ugolin and César, even as they pose as friends and confidants to Jean and his family, to whip up the community’s hostility to encourage the newcomers to leave.
Berri and cinematographer Bruno Nuytten juxtapose the mordant comedy of this story with gorgeous images of the hilly, verdant Provençal countryside. The edenic landscapes provide an ironic contrast for the heavy use of Biblical imagery and the xenophobic and greedy villagers’ religious superstitions that highlight their sanctimony. Amusingly, both Jean and Ugolin regularly air their frustrations at God himself, the former begging for rain to water his arid land and the latter raging at a storm like King Lear, despondent that it will help Jean.
Things build to a head in the film’s final minutes, in which a tragic mishap seals Ugolin and César’s victory in seizing the coveted land. It’s a moment they celebrate by unblocking the spring that they sealed and performing a grotesque baptism as Manon, witnessing them, unleashes a scream of pain and rage at what these men have stolen from her family.
Manon of the Spring, which was released the same year as Jean de Florette, opens a decade after the events of the first film. Ugolin and César are thriving carnation farmers, but their easygoing lives are thrown into disarray when a now-teenaged Manon (now played by Emmanuelle Béart) returns to the area and catches Ugolin’s eye one day when he stumbles across her dancing by a stream in the nude. Resolving to marry her, Ugolin heedlessly sets in motion Manon’s long-awaited revenge, which she seeks not only on the man and his uncle but the entire community who shunned her father and helped dispossess her family.
The second film sacrifices some of the pitch-black comedy of its predecessor while leaning more into fable. When Manon finds a way to weaponize the same methods that were used against her father, villagers fully give themselves over to superstition, fueled as they are by a gnawing sense that God is punishing them for their sins regarding Jean. Berri slowly replaces romantic vistas of the land for cramped, static tableaux of locals in meeting houses and the town cathedral as they supplicate first politicians, then the Almighty for relief as their crops wither and die.
Scenes of the villagers bickering and pleading grow repetitious, and Manon of the Spring lacks Jean de Florette’s balance of beauty and bite. The film is far more engaging when focusing on Ugolin’s doomed attempts to woo Manon. Though twice her age, the man often comes across as bashful and virginal, asking his uncle’s advice on how to talk to women and approaching the girl with overly strong declarations of devotion. But his grinning face runs right into the stone wall of Manon’s visage as she radiates disdain for him. Manon rarely speaks, but Béart’s piercing stare and clenched-jaw tension says more than enough.
Manon of the Spring resolves the overarching story as one of regrets by Ugolin and César as their actions catch up with them and prompt different emotional responses in each man. Ultimately, it’s the old man’s weary shame that sets the tone for the film’s final act, recasting the cinematography’s greens and yellows in autumnal solemnity. This tonal shift transforms Manon of the Spring from a caustic morality play into something more reflective, an elegy to a way of life whose residents did not fully appreciate until they themselves had helped to end it.
Image/Sound
Sourced from Pathé restorations of both films, the Criterion Collection’s 4K transfers present the heavy yellow and green hues of Bruno Nuytten’s on-location cinematography in all its warmth. Moments where sunlight threatens to wash out the image never lose detail, which is sharp enough throughout the movies that you can almost feel the rough, handcrafted fabrics of peasant clothing. The soundtrack perfectly captures the idyllic ambient sounds of insects and leaves rustling in the breeze while keeping dialogue clear.
Extras
Criterion’s release comes with two substantial documentaries. One profiles Claude Berri, offering an overview of his career before focusing on Manon of the Spring lacks Jean de Florette. The other documentary is a 2017 retrospective of the films’ making and their box office success and impact on tourism to France. A booklet essay by film professor Sue Harris analyzes the film as an adaptation of the wildly popular source novel and also calls attention to the bold decision to confine a mega-star like Gérard Depardieu, then at the peak of his popularity, to the first movie while making the then-unknown Emmanuelle Béart the protagonist of the second.
Overall
Claude Berri’s gorgeous, acidic diptych of rural greed looks flawless on Criterion’s release.
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