Farinet ou l'or dans la montagne

With the backdrop of late 1930's Europe and the threat of totalitarianism this film presents a parabel about freedom, where it begins, where it ends, and where the power of the state begins. I saw this about ten years ago and am now reading the book, By C.F. Ramuz, French-Swiss author, which I believe came out in 1933 and is based on an actual set of circumstances or legend out of 19th century Switzerland.

A Swiss movie but the two principals are French:Jean-Louis Barrault cast as a rebellious young man with an unusual country accent and Suzy Prim ,an actress who made lots of movies but is too often forgotten now,perhaps because she was not very good-looking.

The subject of "Farinet" was absorbing but the treatment was much less so.Should A counterfeiter be considered a criminal whereas everybody knows that "true" money is the root of all evil,of injustice ,of war...? The inhabitants of the village are not wrong when they consider Farinet a hero ;they take a rebel stand against capitalism without knowing it .Even the "enemy" ,the gendarmes ,ar not sure to be on the right side .

One of the rare movies to get a 10/10 rating -with a tiny numbers of votes though-,"Farinet" is not really up to scratch ,boiling what could have been a true "political" comedy down to love stories,jealousy and cops and robbers stories .It is nonetheless a curio worth looking at,particularly for Barrault's fans:he is ideally cast as the rebel with a cause,championing the cause of people who are subjected to the law of the strongest,the wealthiest and the banks.