Manon des sources

After spending 2 hours with Manon, I'm still in shock, but in a way I saw it coming. The film proves that greed only last for a certain time, but love and being a good person is what lasts forever. That's where happiness lies.

Our crimes pay, it will eventually catch up with you, and this picture tells us best.

I won't say anymore.

The picture is as amazing as the first, Jean de Florette.

I always felt that the week I needed to show the two films was worth the time for the students: they heard other-than-Parisian accents and they saw truly fine films! I enjoyed watching them as well, but I always went to the front of the room toward the end of Manon so I could watch the reaction of the students at the "revealing" scene near the end. One year, a young lady whom I did not particularly like was glued to the TV closest to her: her eyes widened, her mouth gaped, and perfectly silent tears started to flow down her cheeks. Not a motion, not a sound...just tears. I decided I liked her quite a bit more than I previously had!

Following the death of her father, Manon (Emmanuelle Beart) has remained in the farm house tending goats. Galinette (Auteuil) and his uncle Cesar (Montard) have greatly prospered from the fresh spring water and their carnations grow well. Galinette begins to turn towards ideas of love and steadily falls for the distant Manon. Meanwhile she has discovered the treachery that once befell her father and begins her plan to uncover the culprits.

This follows on from the open-ended story of "Jean de Florette". Time has passed and Manon is now a beautiful young woman. This film will satisfy those who felt the bleak ending of the first film was not satisfying. This sees those who acted in greed receive their deserves. As a conclusion to the story it is satisfactory - the film begins quite relaxed and is quite humorous throughout. However the "punishment" of both Galinette and Cesar is moving. Cesar's fate is particularly impacting and you feel sorry for him and his greediness.

The performances are not as strong as before. In the first film both Montard and Auteuil had set characters to play. Here they are less set and act out their roles rather than their characters. Beart is good as Manon, but she is too different in heart from the angel of the first - it's understandable why she has changed but where she was since the last film is not clear, it's unlikely that her mother would have left her at the farm or that she would have let her leave to return. But this is a minor complaint over a moving tale of deserves. I would say this rather than revenge - because both Galinette and Cesar bring their pains upon themselves.

My only problem with this is that it follows the story of the first film. However to me the first film was more about human nature (greed & hope specifically) rather than the story of the farmland and the spring. Although the end of Jean de Florette was bleak it was perhaps understandable that things should end that way. That said this is a good conclusion to the story if that's what you want - although as a further look at human nature it doesn't convince as well as the first did.

Manon des Sources is a good film that has all the visual beauty of the first film and continues the strong emotive story - as a pair of films they are an excellent piece of work. However for me, the first film is so strong in all areas that it leaves too much for the second to live up to.

A moving sequel that almost manages to live up to what went before.

I have been showing Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources in my French classroom for the past ten years. What I find most fascinating about this process is that for many of the students, it is their first experience in watching a foreign film with subtitles, and initially they are not too receptive to the experience. But very frequently, after having seen Jean de Florette ( I show it in first year French), they are so anxious to see what happens that they go and rent the sequel on their own and want to discuss it in class.

This film and its sequel are studies in human nature, in addition to being traveloges of some of the most beautiful countryside in the world. Some of the observations that the students have made about the characters is that they refer to the land and the water with reverential terms. The characters' downfalls are brought about usually because of their inability to accept their restrictions.

If you want two films to use in a French classroom where the scenery is beautiful, the dialogue is usually understandable and the storyline is acceptable to the general public (since we all have to answer to the school boards and the administration), these are the films to use. In addition, if you haven't seen them and you want to just lose yourself in two remarkable films just for the love of good films, these are the ones.

Whenever I'm tempted to give a movie that I liked a lot a "10" rating, I think of this and Jean de Florette (it's one long story arc). It's a rare film that comes up to this standard.

Strongly recommend that you rent them both at once; watch Jean de Florette on Friday or Saturday, and then watch Manon of the Spring the next day. Otherwise, Jean de Fleurette is just too damn depressing.

But whether apart or taken together, they are as fine a work of art as any of us can hope to ask for.