A Year in Provence

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

Peter Mayle's "A Year In Provence" was an unexpected success as a book in 1989, and the BBC filmed a version of it for the 1993 mini-series, which I never saw. But now it is also available as a two-disk DVD set, billed as an "A&E" network movie. This review is of that DVD set. I use the term "a version" of the book, because the two are quite different. An anal-retentive person who expects a film like this to be very similar to the book will have much difficulty watching it. However, for most of us who can enjoy a film on its own merits, without comparing it to the book too closely, it is a marvelous film, now one of my favorites.

The entire "film", to use that term rather loosely, consists of four consecutive 90-minute films, two on each DVD, and best watched over 4 consecutive evenings. While the book is organized by months, the film is broken into the four seasons, Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. Where the book begins with their new year in Provence, the film begins with Peter's and Annie's final days at work, and old friends wishing them well in their new careers right before they actually move to France.

However the biggest departures are in style and in the characters. The book, written from a diary that Peter kept, is more like a survey of interesting places, characters, events, and customs. It rarely goes into much depth, instead covers his and Annie's experiences very broadly. In contrast, the film treats fewer subjects but explores most of them in more depth. Where the book only mentions the Parisian French, in the film we meet "Evelyn", the frantic woman who speaks an almost unintelligible form of English, who has an eye for Peter, and who almost goes mad trying to shut up the neighbor's cock that crows so loudly in the morning, waking her and her house guests.

In the book, the grape harvest and tour of the community winery is mentioned almost in passing. In the film, a funny story portrays how Peter thought his wine was really wine made from "his" grapes and, only after a multi-stop search finds out that it is simply his share of ordinary wine from the wine co-op. In the book Uncle Edward eagerly takes Peter into his wine cave, gives him an exhaustive tasting, sells him much more wine than he set out to buy. In the film, Uncle Edward "has no wine to sell" and simply dismisses Peter, but this is done as part of a larger episode.

There are numerous other such departures, and not much is available about the making of this film, so I have no idea whether the book or the film is more accurate, where there are different versions of the same story. While that may bother some, it doesn't bother me at all. Both versions are thoroughly entertaining.

Most noticeable are that virtually all characters in the film have names different from those in the book. The plumber Menucucci from the book becomes Colombani in the film. The strange neighbor Massott who kills foxes becomes Riviere. And in a similar manner other key characters are given different names. Perhaps this was done for legal reasons, where a diary, even when published, may contain real names, but a film like this may be considered a work of fiction and real names cannot be used. But that is just speculation on my part.

There are three main reasons I like this film so much. First, I am from the French-speaking part of Louisiana and can easily see in the various characters people I grew up around. Second, I spent two weeks in Provence during September 1998, with friends in a 200-year-old house not too different from the one the Mayles lived in. The roads, the people, towns like Ile-Sur-La-Sorgue, the aquaduct near Fontaine de Vaucluse, all included in this film and more brings back fond memories. And third, I really like films based on real events. I found that knowing at least rudimentary French helps greatly, even a viewer knowing no French can enjoy it, because key points in dialog are always repeated in English by a character.

John Thaw plays Peter Mayle and is very believable, although I don't believe Peter in real life is quite as frumpy as Thaw was here. Of note, John Thaw died earlier this year, 2002. But most remarkable are the total cast and what a great job they do playing the various French characters, and the various English visitors. Who could forget Alfred Molina's "Tony", the uninvited guest from hell, another portrayal different from the book?

The DVD picture and sound are not great, by today's standards, but they are still clearly better than a VHS tape. Anyone who has a fondness for, or just a curiosity about, life in Southern France should enjoy this film, "A Year In Provence." A wonderful, wonderful film.

If you've ever harbored a fantasy of living in a foreign country, A Year In Provence is a must see. I've owned the A&E DVD set for awhile and watch this series at least once a year; it's like taking a vacation to a now familiar place where I have friends and know the ropes. I treasure this series as it shows just what it might be like to try to re-settle in a foreign land where you know no one, don't speak the language very well, and, in this case, in a rural area where the residents aren't fluent in English and where you have to conform to their habits, schedules, and priorities. One sees very quickly that moving to a large city might make such a transition easier where services, multi-lingual inhabitants, and common ground are more quickly found. But the charm of this story is watching the husband & wife find their way, played superbly by Lindsay Duncan and John Thaw. Their civilized British take on things is perfectly tuned. They are the strangers in a strange land and their adjustment to a new and very different lifestyle is always interesting. So many kinds of "normal" behavior are depicted and it is the rural French version that delights; never has normal made me smile so much.

The story flows seamlessly through the four seasons of a year and, while the pace is relaxed, there is an assembly of characters and situations that adds just the right spice to keep your attention. Like a fine French meal in the country of origin, by the end you know you've experienced the unique flavor and texture of not only the local food, but also the people, culture, and dilemmas of living country style in Provence. Likely, you'd be able to translate many of the events to almost any country that has indoor plumbing. This is a trip worth taking. 9* out of 10*

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.

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.