La mujer del panadero

I really liked this movie a lot--especially because it had such a great ensemble cast. This movie was absolutely stuffed to the brim with characters from this community to give the movie great life and charm. In particular, the acting by Raimu as the baker was dynamite. He is a one-namer (like "Cher") that looks like a slightly skinnier Oliver Hardy and manages to use a wide variety of facial expressions and body language to convey so much emotion. When his heart is broken by his philandering wife, you really find yourself feeling for the guy! Overall, it was extremely well-acted and well-written and I strongly recommend it. However, be forewarned that the videotape by Interama Video Classics is VERY poor quality AND they use white subtitles that are often very hard to read. I don't know why, but almost EVERY French film from the 1930s I have tried to watch on video is almost unwatchable due to the degradation of the print. I'm not sure why this is, but it could easily turn people away from classics like this movie, and that would be quite a loss, as Marcel Pagnol who wrote this film was a true artist and master of his medium.

Along with Marius, La Femme du boulanger is at the top of the list of Pagnol's films, which is to say that it is among the best films ever made. (This is not just my opinion; evidently Orson Welles said the same thing.) It is a "typical" Pagnol film, in that the plot is rudimentary at best. All the interest is the characters and their dialogue. And, despite very good performances by several of the supporting characters, this film achieves greatness because of the dialogue Pagnol gave Aimable (the baker) and the way Raimu delivers it. A mixture of the most moving pathos and the funniest comedy, the Baker is one of the great characters in film. (Trust me, the chapter in Giono's novel that served as the ostensible "inspiration" for this story is negligible. The genius is all Pagnol's.) The scene that every Frenchman knows is the last one, when Aimable takes out his anger at his wife's infidelity on their cat, Pomponette, but that is an atypical moment in this movie. It is all about Aimable's suffering, at the hands of his wife but also as a result of the way the town treats him. And Raimu conveys that suffering as only the greatest actors have: with understatement.

Marius is funnier and has greater variety of character. But La Femme du boulanger shows what a great director and screenwriter can do with great actors. Movies get no better than this.

My favourite of all the Pagnol films, including the recent ones, due to the timeless, moving performance by the great Raimu as the lovelorn baker. The French stars of that period have never been surpassed as character actors, and for this film the writer was a great character author.

It is an incredibly romantic poem that has been made into a silver screen story. In Urdu, there is a type of poem - Ghazal - the song that lovers sing when they are apart. This movie is one which could be equated to it.

It is a village - a very small one - in which no two persons - either gender - sees eye to eye - and that includes the two who should - the Vicar and the teacher - who greatly dislike each other, and of course there is a great sinner there, the marquis of the territory, who has four 'nieces' living with him. Of course all know, and he too doesn't hide the fact about the relationship between him and his supposedly nieces. But he is incorrigible despite all the exhortation by the vicar (and he does explain why, and one can sympathise with his human - well one can call frailties).

In this village arrives a middle age and not too handsome baker (Raimu) with his lovely and young (enough to be his daughter, as he tells her later) wife, Aurelie (Ginette Leclerc). Her love/romance-less life is awakened by a young and handsome shepherd Dominique (Charles Moulin) and she elopes with him. It all happens quickly and the rest of the movie deals with the suffering of the husband and the behaviour of the villagers. First natural, contemptuous and contemptuously sarcastic towards the cuckolded husband, the matters change, when they find that the baker has stopped baking. With the 'daily Bread' now gone, the only way is to search and bring the wife back to him, and in this effort all the enemies (including the Vicar and the teacher) bury their enmity. However that, and the ending is only consequential. The main thing that makes this exquisite is the pain and suffering of the cuckolded husband - and his feeling towards the wife that has betrayed him (and his still care, and support for her) - and even though he expresses his bitterness - in the end, allegorically, but not hidden to the audience - on or off screen - but still he is ready to forgive and forget - despite the wound inflicted - unlike any of the others - including the Vicar, who does preach the 'First stone' principle, but prefers that it - the confession and pardon of the sinner-ess, if caught - takes place in some one else's vicarage, not his. Only one who probably understand and really sympathises is the devil's disciple of the area, the Marquis, but as he has hinted, he too suffered from the affliction, or may be lack of it - though it is mentioned as love of flesh by Vicar - but really it was much more subtle and beautiful. The story, a few times might seem moving slow - especially at may places where it was almost monologue of the husband - but really can't be sped up - else it would lose the poetic quality - and added to it, it has some very witty dialogues - a few could be (and was, by the Vicar), blasphemous. Came across the movie just by chance - and I wonder why this doesn't figure in the "Movies before you die" lists.

French director Marcel Pagnol had a unique way of composing his films. His best example is September 1938's "The Baker's Wife." Pagnol's style of filmmaking consisted of full shots of all his characters who are captured within the frame. He has them conversing in long takes without resorting to any cutaways. Despite his spare scenes, Pagnol was able to convey his message, displaying an entire range of human emotions to propel his plot forward.

"It is a slice of French life from the past that is timeless in its telling," praised film reviewer Chanan Stern. "It is one of those movies that can and should be watched many times." Pagnol, a famous playwright in the 1920s before turning to film in the early 1930s, is mostly known for his 'Marius' trilogy, especially 1932's "Fanny." Adapting one of the stories from Jean Giono's 1932 novel 'Blue Boy,' "The Baker's Wife" follows baker Aimable (Raimu), who's a recent arrival to a French village. He sets up a bakery shop to replace a recently shuttered one. All the villagers love his bread, including the Marquis (Fernand Charpin), who sends his shepherd (Robert Vattier) to fetch 30 loaves every week. The shepherd attracts the eye of Aurelie (Ginette Leclerc), the baker's attractive young wife. She and the shepherd slink out of town, much to the distress of her husband. He gets drunk and stops making bread. A catastrophe is in the making as the querulous townspeople, who always bicker amongst themselves, agree on one thing and that is to bring back the baker's wife so they can buy their daily bread.

"The Baker's Wife" was a make-busy project for Pagnol's film crew after a previous production using his studio was cancelled, leaving a two-month gap until the next movie was scheduled to be shot. Pagnol had an unusual habit of shaping his stories on the personalities of his actors. He lived with his cast and film crew during the duration of the shoot, ate his meals alongside them, and played games between setups. The director/writer was so familiar with his actors he would shape and rewrite his scripts daily on the basis of their mannerisms and temperament. The nexus of "The Baker's Wife" was actor Raimu, who was Cesar in the 'Marius' trilogy. Raimu had to be coxed to play the baker after he and Pagnol had a falling out. Actress Ginette Leclerc stepped in as an intermediary between the two to patch things up. Raimu ended up giving an unforgettable performance reflecting the immense pain he experiences by his wife running off with another man. "The poignancy comes from the situation - this poor man, who so easily makes himself lovable on screen, is broken in front of us," notes film reviewer Erik Beck. Orson Welles, impressed by Raimu's performance, called him "the greatest actor in the world."

"The Baker's Wife" was acknowledged as the Best Foreign Film of the year by both the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics. The Pagnol film is included in the '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die' book.