The first of Claude Berri's two-part adaptation of Marcel Pagnol's two-volume novel, L'Eau des Collines. (The second part, Manon of the Spring, was shot simultaneously but released separately.) Unquestionably it's a quality production -- one of the discreet ways of saying, or avoiding saying, a somewhat dull and conservative one. The storyline (an idealistic hunchback re-settles with his wife and daughter in rural Provence -- "Zola's paradise," as he thinks of it -- but is sabotaged by a couple of rapacious rustics) creates a lot of impatience, and not just for the next installment. When you have so little trouble taking sides, you can have a great deal of it taking an interest. What nonetheless goes a good ways to redeem the situation, what helps to reclaim it to the real adult world, is partly the absolute pettiness of it, and more importantly the impersonality of it. The protagonist goes to his grave without ever realizing he has antagonists, and the latter are driven not by any personal malice but solely by the free-enterprise credo of me-first-and-nobody-second. It isn't so much melodrama, after all, as capitalism in action. With Gerard Depardieu, Yves Montand, and Daniel Auteuil. (1986) — Duncan Shepherd
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