A Mulher do Padeiro

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

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

My favourite of all the Pagnol films, including the recent ones, due to the timeless, moving performance by the great Raimu as the lovelorn baker. The French stars of that period have never been surpassed as character actors, and for this film the writer was a great character author.

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.

French director Marcel Pagnol had a unique way of composing his films. His best example is September 1938's "The Baker's Wife." Pagnol's style of filmmaking consisted of full shots of all his characters who are captured within the frame. He has them conversing in long takes without resorting to any cutaways. Despite his spare scenes, Pagnol was able to convey his message, displaying an entire range of human emotions to propel his plot forward.

"It is a slice of French life from the past that is timeless in its telling," praised film reviewer Chanan Stern. "It is one of those movies that can and should be watched many times." Pagnol, a famous playwright in the 1920s before turning to film in the early 1930s, is mostly known for his 'Marius' trilogy, especially 1932's "Fanny." Adapting one of the stories from Jean Giono's 1932 novel 'Blue Boy,' "The Baker's Wife" follows baker Aimable (Raimu), who's a recent arrival to a French village. He sets up a bakery shop to replace a recently shuttered one. All the villagers love his bread, including the Marquis (Fernand Charpin), who sends his shepherd (Robert Vattier) to fetch 30 loaves every week. The shepherd attracts the eye of Aurelie (Ginette Leclerc), the baker's attractive young wife. She and the shepherd slink out of town, much to the distress of her husband. He gets drunk and stops making bread. A catastrophe is in the making as the querulous townspeople, who always bicker amongst themselves, agree on one thing and that is to bring back the baker's wife so they can buy their daily bread.

"The Baker's Wife" was a make-busy project for Pagnol's film crew after a previous production using his studio was cancelled, leaving a two-month gap until the next movie was scheduled to be shot. Pagnol had an unusual habit of shaping his stories on the personalities of his actors. He lived with his cast and film crew during the duration of the shoot, ate his meals alongside them, and played games between setups. The director/writer was so familiar with his actors he would shape and rewrite his scripts daily on the basis of their mannerisms and temperament. The nexus of "The Baker's Wife" was actor Raimu, who was Cesar in the 'Marius' trilogy. Raimu had to be coxed to play the baker after he and Pagnol had a falling out. Actress Ginette Leclerc stepped in as an intermediary between the two to patch things up. Raimu ended up giving an unforgettable performance reflecting the immense pain he experiences by his wife running off with another man. "The poignancy comes from the situation - this poor man, who so easily makes himself lovable on screen, is broken in front of us," notes film reviewer Erik Beck. Orson Welles, impressed by Raimu's performance, called him "the greatest actor in the world."

"The Baker's Wife" was acknowledged as the Best Foreign Film of the year by both the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics. The Pagnol film is included in the '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die' book.

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.