La femme du boulanger

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.

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.

I was not aware of this warm-hearted comedy, but I am so glad I watched it. Made in France in 1938, it is full of genuine characters who would never have passed by the Hayes Code censors in the United States at the time. A small French village has suffered through first a poor baker, and then no baker at all. Now the villagers rejoice at the arrival of a new and talented baker, along with his young and very pretty wife. Disaster strikes in less than a week, when the baker's young wife suddenly runs away with a handsome young shepherd. The baker is devastated, and worse from the point view of the villagers, he loses the will to bake.

While pivotal to the plot, the wife of the title is only one minor character in a film full of delightfully exaggerated characters. There are those who carry on cordial feuds that have lasted generations, on the assumption that "there had to be a good reason", while others are quick to start new ones. There is the agnostic schoolteacher, the earnest young priest, the entitled local landowner, the judgmental spinster, the long-winded storyteller, and so forth. None of these characters are presented with anything less than good-natured affection and delight. In a different film, the mockery some of the characters aim at the distressed baker could easily have tipped into cruelty, but meanness is never felt.

Even in a cast full of delightful over-the-top characters, the lead Raimu, as Aimable the baker, stands out in every scene. He is the good-natured everyman, playing a comedic character who also remains fully believable. His genuine pain and disbelief at the unexpected disappearance of his wife is always felt, even while the film shows us the humour in every situation. The scene in which Aimable and his wife finally come face-to-face again is masterfully played. I intend to search out other films made by this French star.

This joyful film is a not just fun to watch, but will leave you with both a smile on your face and a warm spot in your heart.

In a town where the priest and the teacher argue, where neighbors wrangle because this one's trees as throwing shade on the other's giant cabbages, where no one talks to anyone else for reasons their grandfathers didn't remember, where the last baker hanged himself, there's a new baker in town. It's Raimu, and his bread is magnificent. His wife, pretty Ginette Leclerc promptly runs off with a handsome shepherd. Raimu immediately goes to pieces and the town is split between mocking him, calling her a tramp and worrying about where they'll get bread.

One of the stories about this movie is that Marcel Pagnol wanted Joan Crawford for the role of the baker's wife. She declined on the grounds that she didn't speak French. The other story is that after the war, Orson Welles asked Pagnol for an introduction to Raimu. He was told Raimu was dead and wept. I can understand the reaction. Raimu is so clueless and sad and yet very funny in the role. Any man who has had a woman he loves leave him without any warning can sympathize, even as he looks at Raimu and laughs.

Raimu could fill this movie by himself, yet there are other good roles: the local nobleman who has seven young women living in his chateau; the priest who mouths platitudes without understanding anything; the women who gossip and wrangle among themselves; the old man who has found Mlle Leclerc, but has to tell the story in his own, endless way.

I'd like to have seen Miss Crawford in the role. She would have aced the physical acting, and if she couldn't be coached in the thirty or forty words the character speaks, they could have looped her sides. No one could have replaced Raimu in this magnificent, sad comedy.

This is a movie with a very warm and pleasant atmosphere. It has a childish innocence over it, like basically all these typical genre movies from the '30's seem to have.

It's atmosphere, story and characters make this a very pleasant and entertaining movie to watch. It has a very simple concept, in which a French baker's wife run of with a shepherd, after the first night they moved in to a small village, in the middle of the countryside. After this the baker refuses to make bread anymore. The villagers of course want their daily fresh bread so they together come up with a plan to get her back to the bakery. It all sounds very simple but thanks to its fine storytelling from director Marcel Pagnol it all works out real well. There also is of course more to the story, courtesy of some fine input from the movie its characters and actors portraying them.

It's a well cast movie, with French character actor Raimu in the main lead. The other cast members all have some very characteristic look over them, the way only the French can look. I'm not too happy about the casting of Ginette Leclerc though. She is supposed to be a very pretty woman in the movie but just look at the way Leclerc look...she is no natural beauty. Or perhaps her looks just were the idea of a true beauty, in the France of the 1930's.

It takes a while for the movie to pick up its pace and the movie also tends to drag on a bit in its middle part but in the many parts that the movie finds its right pace, the movie is a great one. It's a real enjoyable comedy, that is not the type of comedy that has some hilarious moments that will make you laugh out loud in it but it's more the type of comedy that tries to constantly entertain. It doesn't fail at that, thanks to the movie its very pleasant atmosphere, simplistic story and likable characters. Especially the movie its last halve, in which the villagers start to undertake action, is just great.

A fun and warm little movie.

8/10

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