Jean de Florette

Hailed as a classic, groundbreaking work of world cinema, this is in reality a perfectly decent film without doing anything too special.
Originally filmed as one monster, but slip in two ('Manon Des Sources' being the other half), the film does not suffer from loose ends or unresolved consequences. Rather it has a certain weight to its conclusions, a seriousness, an almost self-consciously epic quality that is its greatest strength. It takes itself seriously, and invests in what it does; in its characters in its setting, in its deceptively simple plot. For all of this it should be congratulated. The acting is perfectly decent, especially Cesar (Gerard Depardieu is Gerard Depardieu, all the honourary French mainstream greats are wheeled out), and are smoothly put together (not always at a great pace, though this isn't a problem). Visually, Provence of course looks beautiful, iddlyic even at times. few scenes, especially the yellow dust strom and the grapes-of-wrath style shots from below of Cesar, are carried off with flair. So nothng to complain about there.
The problem is that the plot, themes and characters can't quite live up to the billing of the 'classical tragedy' the furniture evoked. There are plot holes, silly things happening out of place that stretch the audience's collaboration. The characters are not particularly special or emotionally engaging, rather just random people, and thus the themes aren't carried off with a lot of consequence. Rather than being left crying, we were left saying 'I suppose that was a bad thing', before we left the cinema and thought about something else. It was nearly easy to revel in what we should be disgusted by, turning it into a caper movie. Perhaps this is Monsieur Depardieu's fault, his Jean de Florette, on further analysis, barely rises above charicature.
To conclude, this is perfectly entertaining, nd we shall try to catch 'Manon des Sources' (the rather pointless girl in 'jean de florette' obviously prefiguring this). It has a good weight, and a certain pleasing solidity. However, it is hamstrung by a lack of consequence, stemming from uninspiring acting/characterisation and a rather unnuanced story.