MANON OF THE SPRING Movie Review

Manon des Sources
Jean de Florette 2

The conclusion of Claude Berri's two-part epic that began with Jean de Florette finds that Jean's young child, Manon, has grown into a stunningly beautiful woman (Emmanuelle Béart). Manon inadvertently discovers a horrible secret; that her father's death and her own childhood misery were needless, because an underground spring on what was her family's property was blocked on purpose, preventing precious water from touching the family's crops. It is Manon's purpose from that moment on to extract revenge from César and Ugolin (Yves Montand and Daniel Auteuil), the greedy and heartless neighbors who were the cause of her family's ruin. The brilliance of Manon of the Spring’s plotting isn't found in Manon's ingenuity in achieving her goal, but in the “come-uppance” that really does César in. His greed causes him to bring the worst imaginable fate upon himself; the scene in which discovers it is worth sitting through every moment of this epic's four hours. It's Montand's scene, and it's a piece of screen acting—performed almost silently—that will leave you shaken. Béart and Auteuil are superb as well. Whatever one's reservations about Berri's epic—and my own are too minor to carp about—it represents a grand, sumptuous form of storytelling that is near extinction at the movies, and we are all the poorer for it. As with Jean de Florette, do what you can to see the sequel in a letterboxed format. And though it may be tempting to watch them in a four-hour marathon, give yourself the luxury of least one day between them, just to let the first part of the story settle comfortably into your bones.

NEXT STOP … Jean de Florette, The Fanny Trilogy, Harvest

1987 (PG) 113m/C FR Yves Montand, Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Beart, Hippolyte Girardot, Margarita Lozano, Elisabeth Depardieu, Yvonne Gamy, Armand Meffre, Gabriel Bacquier; D: Claude Berri; W: Claude Berri, Gerard Brach; C: Bruno Nuytten; M: Jean-Claude Petit, Roger Legrand. VHS, LV ORI, HMV