Sundrenched and redolent of Marseille and Southern France. A real delight but there is a slight puzzle here .... is Auteil setting this in some never-never land? The original dates from 1929, adapted for film two years later. There is no firm indication here of date at all .. the costumes hint at the 1920s or even earlier, the ships in the small port seem in fact 19th century, but characters in a café are dancing to music from the late 1950s. And over the end-titles comes the wonderful Charles Trenet singing a song he recorded in 1947! This is some amazing time-travelling... So the time and settings are all over the shop .. but the story is strong enough to withstand it. I hope the chronology gets sorted out by the time I get around to viewing Part Two, 'Fanny', of this Pagnol trilogy. It better gets sorted out fast .. I'm watching it tomorrow night.
Reviews
4 Reviews
Marius
(2013)
Delightful but some anachronisms make it less authentic than it should be
18 October 2014
The Artist
(I) (2011)
Minor exercise in nostalgia -- but how it drags
13 February 2012
Take 'A Star is Born', throw in a bit of 'Singin in the Rain' and a touch too of 'Sunset Boulevard'. Keep all the clichés and throw out any real plot development, and you have this fairly flat soufflé which just refuses to rise. It's supposed to be an homage to silent movies but is way short of the best of that genre. It could have been worthwhile if the script had contained either more wit or more real emotion .. in this one, everyone seems just to be going through the motions, though I must confess that the star, Jean Dujardin, does his best with the lame material. An Oscar chance? It shows how far cinema has regressed almost 85 years after the introduction of the talkies!
Love in a Cold Climate
(1980)
The wait is over
23 May 2011
At last. In September this year (2011) this masterful adaptation of Nancy Mitford's semi-autobiographical family saga is being released on DVD in all its eight-part glory. I'm not sure if it's slated for release in the States, but British buyers can advance-order now. This is one of the finest literary adaptations ever, ranking with Andrew Davies' 'Pride and Prejudice' and with the BBC adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's 'Brideshead Revisited'. It is witty, but also moving and at times tragic. The story inspires its cast (including Judy Dench, Vivian Pickles, Michael Williams and Michael Aldridge) to turn in some of their finest performances. I had often wondered why Thames Television was resolutely ignoring such a gem in its back-catalogue; thankfully, someone in that organisation has finally woken up.
Anthony, in Woodend, Victoria, Australia
Anthony, in Woodend, Victoria, Australia
Treasures of Katoomba
(1934)
Historically worthwhile
3 October 2008
This 11-minute tourist documentary of the high Blue Mountains of New South Wales in Australia is an invaluable slice of social history.
No spoilers because there's almost no plot -- but being made in the final years of the Great Depression, there's no surprise that money is at the heart of this little mini-movie.
A young couple find their only chance of buying a home is to win the lottery. No chance of that -- but they read that a treasure-hunt will be held in the Blue Mountains that coming weekend -- with first prize, a cheque for 500 pounds. No mean amount in those days -- that would have been enough not for just one home, but two. So up to the mountains they go, in league with several-score other treasure-hunters, in search of the hidden cheque.
The film not only shows (in glorious Black and White of course) the unchanging beauty of the Blue Mountains, but serves as a documentary reminder of the way people lived - their cars, their clothes, the sheer naturalness of their behaviour in the early decades of the 20th Century. And the movie shows a natural Australian sense of humour -- low-key but refreshingly our own. The high score relates not to the quality of the film (the print I saw was average-only, cropped at edges and with lots of flaws) but to its importance as social history. And since I live amongst the beauty it shows, it's got special relevance for me!
No spoilers because there's almost no plot -- but being made in the final years of the Great Depression, there's no surprise that money is at the heart of this little mini-movie.
A young couple find their only chance of buying a home is to win the lottery. No chance of that -- but they read that a treasure-hunt will be held in the Blue Mountains that coming weekend -- with first prize, a cheque for 500 pounds. No mean amount in those days -- that would have been enough not for just one home, but two. So up to the mountains they go, in league with several-score other treasure-hunters, in search of the hidden cheque.
The film not only shows (in glorious Black and White of course) the unchanging beauty of the Blue Mountains, but serves as a documentary reminder of the way people lived - their cars, their clothes, the sheer naturalness of their behaviour in the early decades of the 20th Century. And the movie shows a natural Australian sense of humour -- low-key but refreshingly our own. The high score relates not to the quality of the film (the print I saw was average-only, cropped at edges and with lots of flaws) but to its importance as social history. And since I live amongst the beauty it shows, it's got special relevance for me!
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