A Year in Provence

I watched this series on FTA TV from Radio-Télevision Monte Carlo. It was subtitled in French.

I've since read the book, and it's better. But the photography is good, and some of the characters (can you say Rivière?; the Mayles can't, pronouncing it RIViair) are very convincing. But I'm left with the overall impression that this is the British conquest of Provence. The Mayles are the centrepiece, saving the local people from one disaster after another (amongst other things). Annie doesn't even appear in the book, and my impression is that her name is a pun on the French title "Une année en Provence", but here she's saving the French from themselves. That wasn't necessary, and it strongly detracts from what would otherwise have been a very enjoyable series.

How do I rate it? It's difficult to say. I like watching the recordings we made, but every time the sheer Britishness of it gets on my nerves. So: parts of it are excellent, I'll give it a 5.

Peter Mayle's book is the type-specimen of the expat setting up in a (slightly) foreign land, and a wry set of vignettes of the learning experience. The film (or more properly telemovie) is an absurd - even offensive - exercise in stereotyping which panders to holiday nostalgia and the idea that France is stuck in a primitive past of 'characters' such as those we find in Marcel Pagnol's books/films and their later adaptations. That was 100 years ago! Even then they were 'characters' picked out for their end-of-bell-curve status.

Some reviewers mention with fondness the appalling house guest and the ridiculous Parisienne, both over-the-top embellishments, if not complete inventions. They are simply not believable, ridiculous cardboard cutouts, highly annoying and a complete detractor from the story. I wonder what Peter Mayle himself thinks of the 'extrapolation' of his book.

I will admit to having only watched the first 90 minute episode, but assume the rest is similar. Apart from a bit of personal nostalgia - I love Provence, the old villages and the countryside, and have been through some of the same experiences restoring a house in France (although the day-to-day reality is much more mundane and there are an awful lot of 'normal' people in France who would never make it into this movie) - I found this pastiche of 'characters', Pagnol, scenery and expatriate self indulgence, one of my least satisfying movie experiences for a long time. It's a movie I might well walk out of at the cinema.

I can get the scenery from the Tour de France coverage, the characters in all their richness from Pagnol, and the expat experience from (not always comfortable) reality. Better to watch a travel documentary - skewed of course, but at least some attempt at representing reality in an interesting way.

I don't believe that the smaller vignettes of the book could not have been turned into a movie. Obviously it would require a good storyline into which to weave them, but pickign a few and makign them 'episodes' was an easy way out.

The use of enough English mixed into the conversations as a mechanism to avoid subtitling is quite a good idea, but could have been done much better eg. the characters could have attempted some believable, halting/incorrect version in French and then quickly repeated in English as a sort of verbal subtitle, instead of speaking English at a Frenchman who ostensibly doesn't understand it and then in other places saying something quite fluently in French with an English word thrown in for some common word that they would clearly know (that would work if they were searching for a technical term). The French characters using occasional English words is quite believable. OK, this is a bit picky and might not jar so much on someone who only understands the English, but it could have been one of the saving graces of this film if done better.

Great scenery, and a decent sense of place. Unfortunately, John thaw just calls in his performance, with lots of face pulling and yelling. Lindsay Duncan is much better, but isn't given a lot to do. The French locals are drawn too broadly, and are actually a distraction when on-screen. Still an enjoyable watch though, for the settings and scenery.

I was worried that this A&E production would lack the charm of the book. As it turned out, the aesthetics of this film were spot on, even if the French humor was not as well adapted for the screen compared to all those wonderful passages that were peppered throughout the book.

I read the book many years before seeing the film, but remarkable, the details were still fresh in my mind, thanks to Mayle's gift of description.

I still gave this 4 stars because they did a great job of presenting Provence exactly the way it is and the way one pictures it while reading the book.

But it's the book that will always have a special place in my heart.

~NN

The amount of French language is enormous for an English language production, and that makes it fun to listen and try to understand, because much of the French in conversation is not translated fully. The things that one expects from Provence are all there, and when the expected ending of a story plot does not come and the twist is even more inventive than the simple negation of a stereotype, the narrative really shines. Peter runs the plumber out and you would think that this is the beginning of a rancorous feud, but it's not. Winning at bowling turns out not to be winning after all. The production does its best to include some of the most pointed vignettes of the book. It manages to capture the flavor very well overall. For the strongest sense of the continuity, I recommend that you read the book first; then, when you watch this on VHS/DVD, you can bask in the extra time and story added here to add depth to this stranger and his wife in a foreign land desperately trying to become local and belong.