A Year in Provence

I have this on VHS, and I enjoyed it enormously. Every single scene had something to smile about, whether it was Peter Mayle struggling with french, or Challemagne the rooster. I have one question, Why did so many people ignore this series at the time? Of course, it fell victim to the Darling Buds of May, which is also wonderful, but this is so relaxing to watch.

Provence has never looked so beautiful, some of the landscapes were absolutely gorgeous. John Thaw gives a rock-solid performance, that is always overlooked. When I mention this series to anyone, they are either blank-eyed, or go on criticising the books. Lindsay Duncan is also wonderful as Annie, although I read somewhere, that Thaw's wife Shiela Hancock was originally asked to do the role before the producers decided she was too old.

Watch this series, you'll really like it. I am just angry, that this wonderful programme was ignored. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Great scenery, and a decent sense of place. Unfortunately, John thaw just calls in his performance, with lots of face pulling and yelling. Lindsay Duncan is much better, but isn't given a lot to do. The French locals are drawn too broadly, and are actually a distraction when on-screen. Still an enjoyable watch though, for the settings and scenery.

I haven't read the book however I liked the series as a genuinely honest depiction of how the French and English get on. I have visited France many times and my parents now live there half the year. In a way I think the series may have been influenced too much by the French cast for English viewers tastes. The episodes are very innocent but really are about a couple getting on with their lives in a new environment and the obstacles they overcome. It saddens me greatly that people don't warm to this series more but I think it may have been a bit too ahead of it's time. With greater understanding of language and culture I believe this will appeal to viewers more as the years go on.

Peter Mayle's book is the type-specimen of the expat setting up in a (slightly) foreign land, and a wry set of vignettes of the learning experience. The film (or more properly telemovie) is an absurd - even offensive - exercise in stereotyping which panders to holiday nostalgia and the idea that France is stuck in a primitive past of 'characters' such as those we find in Marcel Pagnol's books/films and their later adaptations. That was 100 years ago! Even then they were 'characters' picked out for their end-of-bell-curve status.

Some reviewers mention with fondness the appalling house guest and the ridiculous Parisienne, both over-the-top embellishments, if not complete inventions. They are simply not believable, ridiculous cardboard cutouts, highly annoying and a complete detractor from the story. I wonder what Peter Mayle himself thinks of the 'extrapolation' of his book.

I will admit to having only watched the first 90 minute episode, but assume the rest is similar. Apart from a bit of personal nostalgia - I love Provence, the old villages and the countryside, and have been through some of the same experiences restoring a house in France (although the day-to-day reality is much more mundane and there are an awful lot of 'normal' people in France who would never make it into this movie) - I found this pastiche of 'characters', Pagnol, scenery and expatriate self indulgence, one of my least satisfying movie experiences for a long time. It's a movie I might well walk out of at the cinema.

I can get the scenery from the Tour de France coverage, the characters in all their richness from Pagnol, and the expat experience from (not always comfortable) reality. Better to watch a travel documentary - skewed of course, but at least some attempt at representing reality in an interesting way.

I don't believe that the smaller vignettes of the book could not have been turned into a movie. Obviously it would require a good storyline into which to weave them, but pickign a few and makign them 'episodes' was an easy way out.

The use of enough English mixed into the conversations as a mechanism to avoid subtitling is quite a good idea, but could have been done much better eg. the characters could have attempted some believable, halting/incorrect version in French and then quickly repeated in English as a sort of verbal subtitle, instead of speaking English at a Frenchman who ostensibly doesn't understand it and then in other places saying something quite fluently in French with an English word thrown in for some common word that they would clearly know (that would work if they were searching for a technical term). The French characters using occasional English words is quite believable. OK, this is a bit picky and might not jar so much on someone who only understands the English, but it could have been one of the saving graces of this film if done better.

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.