From the opening frame which establishes the themes that will drive it through to its conclusion -- a coffin, a scattered bunch of red carnations and those first few notes of that lyrical, haunting score -- Manon des Sources is unforgettable. Combined with its prequel, Jean de Florette, the two are richer than all other preceding filmed epics, including Gone With the Wind and Dr Zhivago. Not just in terms of human drama, but in their command of energy, detail and sheer thematic scope.
But even without Jean de Florette, Manon des Sources is still a great film. You do not need to see the prequel to understand the immensity of human emotions involved: love, passion, revenge and regret. Drenched in the gorgeous clarity of Provencal light, an absorbing tale unfolds with the insistence and precision of a Greek or Shakespearean tragedy, with no scene or line of dialogue wasted and every shot imbued with an ominous prescience and irony. A letter lost decides not just lives, but the fate of entire generations. The farm at Romarins nutures blood-red carnations, the flower of funerals. When ugly, foolish Ugolin (Auteil) first sees Manon (Beart), he swings from the tree at Romarins in delight. On her rejection, he choses the same tree to hang himself and leaves her Romarins -- her childhood home -- in his will.
Yet the pervading weight of tragedy is offset not just with the sheer delight in which director Claude Berri takes in re-creating a rustic Provence, but also with the film's bittersweet humour. Ugolin is not just a creature designed to elicit our sympathy, he is a comic foil. And a scene at the height of the village's disaster -- a council meeting held to discuss what is to be done about the water shortage -- verges on the slapstick.
Nothing else directed by Berri is as compelling as his two adaptations of Marcel Pagnol's literary classic. Nowhere else is his eye so fixed on nature, Yves Montand, Gerard Depardieu (in Jean de Florette) Daniel Auteil or the beauty of Emmauelle Beart. Despite her paucity of lines, Manon is one of Beart's most mesmerising roles, but even her wild, innocent beauty is eclipsed by the late, great Yves Montand. His commanding presence as Papet imbues Manon des Sources with humanity on a scale rarely seen on screen.
Reviewed by Monika Maurer
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