The Well Digger's Daughter (2011)

Absolutely Brilliant!

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Beautiful scenery, perfect casting, quality story-telling, and content that reflects beauty and meaning such that we hardly get to see anymore -- at least, not on the big screen. Or on the home screen.If you love good film, good company, and good values, don't miss treating yourself to this flick.And if you've forgotten what those could look like, well-blended together, go out of your way to be reminded.I don't think you will be disappointed.You may even find something stirring in you, that feels like Real Life once again, not the life we Americans have, for too long, been dished out via our values-free society.

The Well Digger's Daughter. There is something rather attractive about this simple predictable plot, but a bit more complex, quaint movie. You want to very much like it, but it's ultimately very disappointing. You try to adapt to the different morals that are claimed to be of a different time, then you realize there is nothing immoral, just no real moral core to grab on to. You seem to love the sweet quiet convent girl Patricia, and she grows on you as the movie progresses and her character develops. You begin to think by the end she is maybe the only true moral character in the lot and then very disappointingly she becomes as shallow as the rest. Say, like with Jacques, is he just played by a poor actor or is he as simple, shallow and pointless as he comes across. Then of course Pascal, the main character, appears complex, you try to read him as his character develops and progresses. You eventually realize he is a strange morality that all the plot wires do not connect. Simple, so watch it that way, if you look for more it falls apart. Ehhh!!

We were lucky enough to view this marvelous French film yesterday in Fremantle and both of us were touched by the simple story of boy meets girl; girl has his child but things turnout well in the end. The conflicting problems are the unspoken classism of France in those early WW I years that more obviously exist in England but are relatively unknown in France. Some negative commentators spoke from a Feminist perspective about the girl being only a cardboard figure without substance but from our point of view those considerations were unimportant given the beauty of the cinematography and the relative newness of the unfolding story (that is, how the various people played their roles at that time in French history.) We were not prepared to rubbish the film because of modern concerns; the actions of the characters all made sense to us and we considered them to be one example from a plethora of similar timeless actions. Perhaps the only fault that could be drawn was that the ending seemed rather more pat than reality would have allowed in those days.The actors played their roles beautifully and the nuances of the script were delightful in their unfolding. There were many insights (to me as a foreigner) into life at that time in France and as a result I am not prepared to make any negative comments about the story nor the script. We thought it was a beautiful film and well-worth the time and expense to see it.

Remaking a Pagnol film is asking for trouble. Film snobs will dismiss the remake without giving it a chance, though 60 years ago those same film snobs probably dismissed Pagnol as a film director, finding him hopelessly inferior to Renoir or ... Afficionados of Raimu, an unquestionably great actor - when he had a good role - will say that no one can do what he did. And they would be right; no one can out-Raimu Raimu. A force of nature, because Raimu at his best was a force of nature, cannot be imitated or equaled. But a role can be done a different way, even if the words are the same, just as different great actors can succeed at Hamlet or King Lear. And yes, I speak of Shakespeare. Theater/literature snobs can guffaw, but who cares? Let them go about their business.And I will go about mine, which is to talk about this movie, which is remarkably moving. Moving in part because Pagnol's script was a masterpiece, yes, but also because this is a very well-done realization of it.The first thing that struck me about this movie was the color, when you see the scenery. Pagnol, for whatever reason, really didn't do a lot with scenery in his black and white movies. This movie shows what that deprived us of. It is done in the best tradition of the color versions of Jean de Florette, Manon des sources, La gloire de mon père, and Le château de ma mère. The countryside around Salon de Provence comes alive, and is beautiful.I was also struck by the use of music, which again is not a high point in Pagnol's version. The Italian song, so wonderfully recorded by Caruso, is used in very moving ways here. Auteuil has a better sense of how to use music in a film than Pagnol did, at least with this script.But the heart of this movie is Pagnol's text, and this cast, a great one, does it beautifully. True, at times, as I marveled at the genius of Pagnol's text, I wondered if that meant these actors were acting it, rather than becoming the characters. That may be true in some cases, though not for Kad Merad, who becomes Philippet every bit as much as Fernandel did. I can hear Raimu reciting the lines Daniel Auteuil speaks, and beautifully, perhaps because they are so different, certainly because Raimu delivered them in a way that engraved them in my memory. But Auteuil makes them very moving as well. He is not a force of nature as Raimu was, but his Pascal is also a real character.What I realized, over and over again watching this movie, is that the script was indeed written by a playwright, and Auteuil respects that. We still have fully-developed scenes, as movies used to have when they were still imitating theater. And, as a result, with this great script and these great actors, we have deeply moving moments, such as when Pascal says goodbye to his daughter, sending her off to raise her bastard child elsewhere. Or, even more deeply moving, when the parents of the father of her child, having just lost their son in the war, come to see the child, the last remnant of their now lost son. Every line of that scene is deeply moving: Pascal's pride in his grandson, the parents' grief and longing for their son. (I didn't care for the mother's final admission that she burned her son's letter rather than deliver it to Patricia; that was better done in the previous version.)A film script is like a play: it can be done in more than one way, if it's worth doing - as this script most certainly is. It will not wipe away memories of Pagnol's 1940s version, nor should it. You don't have to forget Olivier's Hamlet to love Jacobi's, or Branaugh's, or ... I suspect the very film snobs who dismiss Pagnol's own work will cause this film not to enjoy the success it deserves, but that would be a real crime. This is, in fact, a wonderful realization of Pagnol's very beautiful, very wonderful script.---------------------------------I watched this movie again this evening, and really have nothing to add to what I wrote before, other than to say that it is a beautiful realization of Pagnol's script. Auteuil, Merad, and Darroussin are three of modern French film's finest actors, and they all give first-rate performances here. The often wonderful dialogue is delivered as in a great movie or play, lovingly and beautifully. Watch this. It's a deeply moving and wonderful movie.