Jean de Florette

What can be discussed freely are the extraordinary performances that Berri coaxed from a cast that could not be bettered.

The edenic landscapes provide an ironic contrast for the heavy use of Biblical imagery and the xenophobic and greedy villagers’ religious superstitions that highlight their sanctimony.

Jean de Florette doesn’t have the motor of a work conceived as a film. It’s a copy, with no life of its own.

The point of the film is not to create suspense, but to capture the relentlessness of human greed, the feeling that the land is so important the human spirit can be sacrificed to it.

You may also become permanently sick of goats. But after Jean, a rich residue of themes and images remains -- much as after reading a long but great novel or Greek tragedy.

These epic films examine how greed, arrogance, power, dumb luck and ineptitude ultimately shatter the lives of the work’s major players.

Despite its aspects of humanity, the characters seem cold and distant, making one yearn for those that populated Renoir's rural universe. [Full Review in Spanish]

[VIDEO ESSAY] "Jean de Florette / Manon des Sources" is an emotionally potent movie whose lush depiction of Provence captures your imagination in such a tangible way that you feel as if you are living there during the period.

Jean de Florette is as melodramatic as any soap opera, but its treatment is just a little askew, just off-center enough for the film to evolve into a moving and powerful pastoral tragedy.

A stealthy work that creeps up on the viewer, becoming intriguing without seeming to work at it.