BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

BallWubba Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Tweekums Set in Provence shortly after the First World War Ugolin Soubeyran, a returning soldier, dreams of growing carnations; unfortunately his land doesn't have enough water. His uncle César knows that there is a blocked spring on the neighbouring farm. After the untimely death of the man who owns the land they hope to buy it cheaply from the new owner; a hunchbacked former taxman named Jean. Jean, who arrives with his wife and daughter, dreams of farming the land. He plants crops and starts breeding rabbits; at first things go well but when the rain stops Jean and his family must travel miles a day to collect water from another spring. All the time his César and Ugolin watch waiting for Jean to give up and sell them the land.This film is an utter delight with moments of humour as well as a degree of tragedy. Gerard Depardieu does a really fine job as the eponymous Jean; he makes you really feel the effort and heartache of his character as he toils away never knowing how close he is to a spring that could save his enterprise. Yves Montand and Yves Montand also impress as César and Ugolin; they make the characters amusing without them tipping over to being pantomime villains. The film also provides some beautiful but rugged scenery and captures rural French life at the time. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to anybody wanting a beautiful, character led drama... now I need to watch part two; 'Manon des Sources'.

ElMaruecan82 Yesterday night, while I was fueling my body with the refreshing coldness of a glass of water, one simple thought got me back to the film I had just watched: Claude Berri's "Jean de Florette", adapted from the novel by writer, director and Academician Marcel Pagnol. See, I always drink water before going to sleep, but for the first time, I could value it, it even tasted better. Water, and subsequently land, suddenly became the stuff dreams were made on, or nightmares in their absences, or echoing Pagnol' story, their apparent but no less agonizing absences.It seems logical that in a rural setting, water and earth would be the pillars of two-part novel "Water of the Hills" whose first chapter is "Jean de Florette", followed by "Manon of the Spring": but once you're immersed in what seems to be an epic family drama, spanning four generations of deceptions and lies, you realize nature was only an accessory to the film's real theme, which is the relentlessness of human greed and the level of cruelty it can push even the most benevolent persons, in that case, Ugolin (Daniel Auteuil), an ugly farmer whose dream is to grow carnations and his uncle, César aka Le Papet, Yves Montand in one of his last and best roles as the patriarch of the decimated Soubeyran dynasty. César understands the profitability of flowers and for the sake of family whose remaining heir is his dim-witted nephew, he plots an evil scheme in order to buy at a very cheap price the only land that can provide enough water, thanks to an unknown spring of fresh mountain water.A chain of events going as fluidly as seasons and sun leads us to the land being inherited by Jean, the son of Florette, a girl from the country César "knew" in the past. Jean is played by Gérard Depardieu and even a non-French ear would notice that he doesn't have the same singing accent than the people of Provence. But if he doesn't sing, the man is overwhelmed by happiness, believing he's just inherited a parcel of heaven on Earth (and from the beautiful cinematography of Bruno Nuytten, we can hardly disagree). Jean has a devoted wife (Elizabeth Depardieu) and a delicate infant girl named Manon, the characterization from Depardieu leaves no doubt that he's a good father, husband and man, but from an outsider's eye, he's a hunchback, a tax collector and a city slicker. Ugolin makes sure everyone knows his father belongs to the rival village, which deepens the shift of suspicion between Jean and the rest of the town.But Jean is too excited to pay attention, the man knows how to be practical, he wants to make profits out of the land, to raise rabbits and plant a species of cucurbits that grow fast, to feed them. He trusts the existence of a spring of water not far from the hill and the rains of summer to do the job; it's a hazardous mission that could have easily been solved had César told him about the spring. But both Soubeyrans had stopped the spring already by loading it with cement, and not to unveil suspicions, César tells Ugolin to befriend Jean so he never needs any other contacts. "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer" seems to be the motto of this slow and infuriating scheme, operated by a mastermind who spends his time spying behind the trees, as César, Yves Montand is a peasant-like version of Noah Cross with a water-scheme of equally Machiavellian proportions.But Jean never sees his enemy and when weather stops being cooperative; he keeps going back and forth from the distant spring, fastening heavy barrels of water on his hunch. Villagers suspect something but there's a sort of Sicilian Omerta going in this part of France, Jean doesn't even know he didn't plant his vegetables at the right side of the valley and only discover it when it's too late. It comes down to the vital moment where all it takes to solve his problem is Ugolin's mule but then the nephew puts the final nail in Jean's coffin. Driven by madness and a furor against God who disgraced him enough with the hunch, Jean accidentally dies after trying to dynamite a well. And the film closes with the two men having succeeded in buying out the family and making a mock baptism with the unloaded water from the spring, under the shocked eyes of little Manon.Does she know that they knew from the start about the spring? What matters is that we know and that beyond the death of Jean, what they did was killing his happiness, sacrificing the spirit of a good man on the altar of greed and selfishness. r. This is how fascinating "Jean de Florette" is, it works like John Huston's "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" where a quest for gold says more about greed and paranoia than any study, when universal themes can be summarized through simple and palpable objects. This is what Cinema is about; using visuals to convey messages that can speak for many humans. Pagnol, by using a world that is unique within France itself, rural Provence, with its sepia and green landscape, its Mediterranean countryside, its lyrical accent, colorful population and grasshoppers in the background recreated a universe that could speak a language any foreigner could understand, because there's no need to be a farmer to understand how important water could be, it's not about the water but to which corner its importance can drive someone.Indeed, take the spring in "Jean de Florette", for Jean, it would have been the Holy Graal, for Ugolin and his uncle, a coveted treasure and for Manon, it was the weapon that killed her father, and in all poetic justice, the instrument of her coming vengeance in second opus "Manon of the Spring".

Neil Welch In post World War I Provence, unscrupulous patriarch Papet and his nephew Ugolin are planning to acquire some land from a local who dies, in the course of which they block up the spring on the land, the source of local water. The land is inherited by a stranger - the titular Jean de Florette - who moves in with his wife and small daughter, and begins to put his own plans into operation. Jean, trying to unblock the spring, dies in an explosion, his wife and daughter have to move, and Papet and Ugolin acquire the land. But there is a sequel...This subtitled French language film (which provided both the music and the ambiance of the UK Stella Artois commercials of the 90s and noughties) is first rate. The story is strong, the characters are stronger, and the feeling of 'tween-Wars rural France is stronger still. Gerard Depardieu as John, Yves Montand as Papet, and Jean Auteuil as Ugolin are all excellent.Just bear in mind that you can't watch it in isolation - you HAVE to watch the sequel, Manon Des Sources immediately afterwards.

johnnyboyz Has farming, indeed agriculture in general, ever been as cinematic as it is in Claude Berri's Jean de Florette? The joy is in observing the rather articulate nuances that the characters must undertake when particular farming tasks require particular tools and items for a job at hand; the film eventually coming to resemble a tale about a man most probably as alien to farming as the audience and enjoying it as much as we enjoy watching his taking up of this challenge. The farming within the film, in its specificities revolving around the planning; the predicting; the techniques and the use of certain items and animals for certain events, is as intrinsic as the film's core study of greed and the capitalist infused garnering of an industrial item, an item which will bring large amounts of personal wealth and riches, eventually at the expense of others. The film eventually coming to form a remarkably executed, heart breakingly tragic, blackly comic, devilishly well put together period drama from France well worth checking out.The film begins with a young man named Ugolin (Auteuil) returning home to the South of France, and his uncle's farm, having served time with the French army; the soundtrack a dry and sleepy orchestral tune suggesting much in the way of travels and tiredness, only momentarily breaking off into louder bursts of a much more positive tone as he nears home. Upon arriving home, Ugolin takes clear glee in rushing to a small patch of soil on the grounds and unwrapping a plant of some kind so he may observe it; something he appears to enjoy more than being reconciled with his uncle after such a stretch of time and furthermore suggesting an inclination towards agricultural work, his dream eventually revealed to be one of which revolves around the growing and selling of flowers for a living. His uncle is Cesar (Montand), an elderly man whom demands Ugolin find a wife and have children in the near future so that the land may be passed down and kept within the family; his other eye on a stretch of land lying nearby to his own, a stretch functional enough as it stands and with a natural spring beneath it capable of escalating the quality of the goods that only Cesar knows of, but a stretch already owned by a man no way willing to just sell up.Berri spends a good deal of time with these two farmers, their dreams; their positions and their core characteristics filling up most of the film's opening act. We come to like them during this early part and their blackly funny misadventures as well as their dry observations on life and newfound situations which open up as a result of other events. We side with young Ugolin, this simple young man whom has only just returned from national service and wishes to move into floristry. It is only when the titular Jean of Florette arrives, in the form of Gérard Depardieu, that we see the true nature of them; Jean being the rightful heir to that of the land when Cesar and Ugolin accidentally-on-purpose murder the owner of the land thus bringing Jean into the equation following a string of other legal complications with the rightful land owner.Jean and his family of wife Aimee (Elisabeth Depardieu) and young daughter Manon (Mazurowna) are not used to such surroundings; their previous incarnation of living in a more urbanite locale ill preparing them for what they come into contact with here, the beauty and calmness of the locale coming to resemble mere surface featurettes as those within plot and brew. The obvious distinctions between themselves and those more attributed to the land arrive in the form of their clear differences in clothing, as well as their talk of things of a more cultured nature, namely the opera, as on occasion Aimee breaks out int chorus of song to Jean's own harmonica tunes.What unfolds is a game of cat and mouse and hope and frustration between the two farmers, in Ugolin and Cesar, and the Florettes whom hang around much to the annoyance of their neighbours whom still want the land, know of its true flourishing nature and retain the spring as their secret. Jean's gradual coming around to realise how wondrous and how magnificent the locale is, and how enthralling the individual tasks and procedures which make up farming echoes our own coming around to feel similarly towards the film. Just as agricultural activity is fresh to that of Jean, the arrival of he and his family acts as a fresh and very crisp presence within the film to that of the audience; the very gradual bringing of the audience around on Berri's behalf to have us see the two original farmers as cruel and calculating businessmen as this initial outsider and his family capture our hearts, is outstanding. The film is a really well executed drama, a wonderful piece persistently flicking from tone to tone and character to character in perfect tandem; a film working on a level of family drama, fish out of water storytelling and dark comedy culminating in something quite special.