It is quite unusual to see a film through fresh eyes, not knowing the plot or having read any reviews. That’s what I did at the Ciné Lumière in South Ken on Sunday afternoon.
The film is La Fille du Puisatier by Marcel Pagnol. (Do not confuse it with a 2011 re-make.) This was released in 1940 and as you would expect from Pagnol, a novelist and playwright, has as many layers as a mille-feuille. Next thing to clear up for those at the back of the class is that a puisatier is not to be conflated with a patissier; the former digs wells and the latter makes mille-feuille.
It is a romantic comedy/drama set in the early part of WW II and includes Petain’s speech surrendering to Germany. It is easy to see the heroine, a “fallen woman”, as la Belle France who has been ravaged. However, without spoiling the plot too much, she has a bonny son and there is much reconciliation by the end. A bit of a stretch but maybe Pagnol anticipated European reconciliation and the EU? Or you could forget the symbolism and wallow in a really good old-fashioned black and white movie.
I enjoyed watching it unfold in theatrical scenes of confrontation, comedy, drama and tenderness. Its English title is The Well-Digger’s Daughter; does this make a connection? Of course it does: Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources. Pagnol wrote them both as novels in the 1960s but we remember the films. There have also been films of his memoirs which I think I saw but were not so gripping as his fiction.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the flowers so unexpectedly given to me by the insurers (Admiral) of my seventeen year old jalopy look even better now than when I snapped them a few days ago.
A splendid start to the day, Christopher – something to put a smile on everyone’s face in this morning’s bulletin……..