This is a bonus
installment of my monthly series Audient Audit.
I certainly didn’t intend to write more than the 12 monthly installments
I had planned for Audient Audit, but
a circumstance came along that screamed out for a bonus. Unlike all the other
movies in the series, it has to do with a movie I actually did see, though it
wasn’t on any of my lists. And that’s a big deal, because realizing I’ve seen a
movie that I didn’t have on my lists is something that only happens every
couple years these days.
First I’ll tell you how it happened.
I’m in a movie group on Facebook called Flickchart Friends’
Favorites Fiesta, which is an offshoot of the discussion group related to the Flickchart website. I don’t actually participate all that much in the original discussion
group these days – something having to do with no longer getting the proper
notifications to see the new posts – but I’m a loyal participant in this second
group. The premise in the group is that each month, you are randomly assigned
the highest ranked movie you haven’t yet seen from somebody else’s chart. They
get your highest ranked, or more likely, someone else does. (I’ve only been
randomly matched up with the same person in the same month once.) You’d think
it might be easier from a "drawing names from a hat" standpoint if they had
people get each other, but I’m not the organizer.
Anyway, in August I got given Jean de Florette, which is the #1 movie on the chart of one of the
other participants. As soon as I saw the title that had been assigned to me, I
wondered why the hell this movie is not on my various lists.
As you know if you’ve been following this series, I tend to
err on the side of adding a film rather than excluding it. If I have a vague
memory of seeing certain random extractions from a film, I usually say I’ve
seen it, though this series has proven that actually to be the case only one time out of eight total films. It’s not very common, obviously, for me to have seen most
of or an entire film and decide that I probably didn’t see it.
Jean de Florette
is a particularly strange case, because if you walked up to me and asked me if
I’d seen it, I’d say “Of course.” In fact, I believe I watched it in French
class when I was in high school. I may have also watched the sequel, Manon of the Spring, or Manon du Source, in the same setting. (I
now see it listed as Manons des Sources,
which sounds like some Bicycle Thieves
shit if I’ve ever seen it.)
But neither Jean nor Manon is on any of my film lists, and I
wonder if this points to a flaw in the original making of the list. My original
film list was composed of films from a video rental catalogue around 1990, and
only because that catalogue was so comprehensive did I consider it a good
source (if you will) for a list that I’m still updating nearly 30 years later. I’ve
of course filled in missing titles over the years, which is an inexact science.
But rarely – as I said, only once every couple years – do I still think of titles
that I’ve been missing. I guess it’s possible Jean de Florette did not appear in this original video catalogue,
maybe because it wasn’t available for some reason, and that it simply never got
corrected.
Anyway, it’s a pretty great film. Here’s what I wrote about
it when I reported back on my viewing in the Flickchart group:
The story is surprisingly simple. It involves a tract of
land near Provence, France, where grapes are cultivated for wine and other
farming occurs. However, the area is tricky as the sources of water are few,
meaning prospective growers rely on the rain to slake the thirst of their
plants, and in the case of the title character, allow the plants to grow that
will feed his rabbits. He’s inherited the land from his uncle, who died during
a scuffle when his neighbors approached him to buy his land for their enterprise
growing carnations. They wanted to buy the land because they know of a spring
that can provide the water to make the land suitably verdant, but they’re not
going to tell Jean, his wife and his young daughter about that. They want to
see him fail spectacularly so they can buy the land for cheap.
I am sometimes amazed by how much fascinating content can
spring, so to speak, from a story that is so straightforward and uncomplicated.
Jean de Florette is just short of two hours long (and is in fact the first in a
two-part series that ends with Manon of the Spring), but the performances and
the small details in Jean’s struggle to breed his rabbits keep a viewer glued
the whole time. Three French acting treasures shine in this film, from Gerard
Depardieu as the title character to the mercenary neighbors, played by Daniel
Autieul and the great Yves Montand. I enjoyed being in their company for two
hours even as I balled my fists at the callousness of the last two. Depardieu’s
dogged optimism helped balance that out. Jean is also a hunchback, which
complicates the way the townspeople view him and support (or don’t support) his
claim to the land.
There was a preamble and a little bit after that, but I’ve
already included those thoughts elsewhere in this post.
The two-disk set I got from the library also includes Manon of the Spring, and even though I’m
leaving on a three-week trip to America on Saturday, I may renew the rental and
take it with me. In fact, it may work out that this is my regular monthly post
for September, although I’ll have to see if I can justify it to myself. After
all, the audits in this series are supposed to be movies I’m not sure if I’ve
seen but are on my lists.
Maybe I’ll just watch it, you know, just to watch it.
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