Metacritic-Rezensionen

It moves with a majestic pacing over the affairs of four generations, demonstrating that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children.

The twists taken by the narrative, the quality of the performances, the superlative cinematography, and Berri's masterful direction make this one of the best motion pictures ever to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

The pacing is expansive rather than draggy; Berri is in no rush to tear through his story, but the dialogue is generally meaningful and story-critical, and very little goes on that isn't directly relevant to the story's ultimate ends.

Another aching heartbreaker of a film by Berri that absorbs and rewards the audience for sticking with Manon on her sun-beaten quest.

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.

Manon des Sources is the poignant, but more dramatically wobbly, followup to Jean de Florette, producer-director Claude Berri's risky two-film adaptation of a novel by Marcel Pagnol, who, unsatisfied with his own next-to-last feature in 1952, expanded it as a two-part novel.

Though appealing in its wispy way, "Manon" is only a continental soap opera.

To completely sabotage the work, there is an insipid affair between Manon and a young teacher, Bernard (Hippolyte Girardot). Their juvenile romance blunts the epic effect that Berri obviously is trying to create.

Berri remains a boring director, dotting every i and crossing every t with nothing much on his mind but platitude.

The events in ''Manon of the Spring'' are no more wildly melodramatic than those in ''Jean de Florette'' but, without the indoctrination provided by ''Jean,'' the second film functions as a mean-spirited review of the first.