Jean Florette

Marcel Pagnol was rightly admitted into the Acadamie Francaise, just about the highest honor a French writer can receive. No less a major force than Orson Welles described Pagnol's own movie 'La Femme du Boulanger' (The Baker's Wife) as the greatest movie ever made. For someone with a limited canvas - Provence, its small hamlets, the port of Marseilles, and the people who lived there - he sure extracted the maximum mileage. Jean de Florette and its sequel Manon des Source has now arguably become the highest profile of all Pagnol's work eclipsing even the great trilogy 'Marius', 'Cesar' and 'Fanny' featuring the great Raimu, and his two autobiographical works My Father's Glory and My Mother's Castle. It is very gratifying for someone with a healthy streak of cynicism in their makeup to read such glowing tributes to this movie. If French cinema NEEDED an ambassador, which it doesn't, then these two titles - shot back to back as Montand's wife, Simone Signoret, lay dying - could not be bettered. To add any superlatives to those already posted here would be superfluous so just let me say that Montand is at the top of his game and that is saying something. Superb entertainment with terrific ensemble playing. An all-time great. 11/10

Jean de Florette is a magnificently acted, superb film with fine music and excellent cinematography. The colors used are vibrant and the red carnations are a stunning adjunct of the movie. Its sequel, Manon of the Spring, is even better, and its dramatic ending is quite well written and enacted. Together, these two films are amongst the finest to come from France.

This film captures another world, and makes you a part of it. The acting is superb, the scenery breathtaking, and a huge amount of skill and effort has gone into evoking the heat of summer and the details of village life in a harsh, pre-industrial world. If you cannot stand watching a film in a foreign language, or you only watch films with special effects and non-stop action,then you may find something to object to in this one, but otherwise it is perfection. The story is heart-wrenching, all the characters (both good and bad) demand sympathy, and the story is both credible, and beautifully told. That is the true quality of this film - it tells a simple, gripping story in a way that grips any viewer with a heart from start to finish.

This is a marvel of story-telling. Rarely have I felt so much pain for a fictional character. The "force of destiny" (great sound track motif selection!) is nowhere as evidently crushing as in this movie. I'm astounded and stunned by the beauty of human suffering, not, of course, out of sadism but out of melancholy. Great, great movie (though the Southern French accent is very hard to understand).

The reason why I was watched this film is because I read both "la gloire de mon pere" and "la château de ma mere", two other books written by Marcel Pagnol, and I found them fascinating.

This film is a fabulous portrayal of one man's greed over another man's dream. The performances given in this film are mesmerising, from Depardieu's hunch back to Montand's le papet. Although this film is sublime, I think it would be a wise choice to see the following film, Manon des Sources, as it gives the whole story through both the films.

The film really goes to show how far some people will go to get what they want, whether it's le papet trying to secure a legacy for his family's name, or Jean de Florette trying to get his amazing ideas on farming to work.

Everything comes together so well in this film-the score, the storyline and the performances, something modern movie makers should take note of.