Jean de Florette: 35 years
On August 27, 1986, the film "Jean de Florette" directed by Claude Berri was released on the screens of French cinemas.
The background of the film is as follows. In 1952, Marcel Pagnol, the leading figure of French cinema, who founded the magazine "Les Cahier du Film" in 1931, which over the years became one of the most influential world film publications, was the first French cinematographer elected to the French Film Academy in 1947, directed the film "Manon des sources" based on his own story. The author's version of the film lasted more than 4 hours, and the Gaumont distribution company cut it by more than half before the release of the film on the screens. Much to Pagnol's annoyance.
Ten years later, he wrote the novel "Jean de Florette", which was a prequel to the novel "Manon des sources". Both novels were published in 1963 under the general title "L'Eau des Collines (Water of the Hills)". 20 years later, this book, forgotten by one of the guests in one of the hotel rooms, accidentally fell into the hands of director Claude Berri. He literally fell in love with this work and decided to make two films, one for each part of it.
The filming of both films was carried out in parallel, from May to December 1985. The total cost of the project was $ 17 million, and this made it the most expensive film project in France at that time.
The film "Jean de Florette" was met by French moviegoers with great enthusiasm. During the year, more than 7 million viewers, or almost 13% of the country's population, watched it in cinemas in France.
In July 1987, Claude Berri's film "Jean de Florette" was presented to guests and participants of the Moscow International Film Festival. The jury of the film festival, headed by the famous actor Robert De Niro, either did not want, or did not consider it possible to mark the film with any award. But it does not matter, because the main thing in this fact was the reunion of the French film star Yves Montand with the Soviet moviegoer. For more than 15 years, Yves Montand was persona non grata for the Soviet film distribution for his role in the film "L'aveu (The Confession)".
In the same 1987, "Jean de Florette" received 8 nominations for the César Award in the homeland, but was awarded in only one nomination - Best Actor (Daniel Auteuil). In the most important categories - Best Film and Best Director - the French Film Academy gave preference to the film "Thérèse" and its director Alain Cavalier.
In early 1988, "Jean de Florette" was nominated for the American Golden Globe Award in the category Best Foreign Language Film. But the Hollywood Foreign Press Association considered the Swedish film "Mitt liv som hund (My Life as a Dog)" directed by Lasse Hallström more worthy of this award. But the film "Jean de Florette" turned out to be in a very worthy company of relative losers: "Au Revoir les Enfants" by Louis Malle, "Monanieba მონანიება (Repentance)" by Tengiz Abuladze and "Очи чёрные (Dark Eyes)" by Nikita Mikhalkov.
But the real triumph for "Jean de Florette" was arranged by the British film academics. They nominated this film for their BAFTA award in 10 categories and awarded victory in 4 of them. Including, in the most important category - Best Film. In another important category - Best Director - Claude Berri lost only to Oliver Stone, the director of "Platoon". Another prestigious nomination - Best Foreign Language Film - "Jean de Florette" lost only to the film by Andrei Tarkovsky "Offret (The Sacrifice)".
From professional film critics, the film "Jean de Florette" received entirely positive reviews. The guru of American film criticism, Roger Ebert, gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4 possible and called it "a merciless study in human nature".
The famous American film critic James Berardinelli wrote in his review: "When Berri completed Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources, he may not have recognized that he had crafted one of the greatest French films of all time, but he certainly understood that the duology would be seen as an achievement. Few films develop characters as deep and multi-dimensional as those represented here. Rather than taking the easy and less satisfying route of relying upon stereotypes to form the background of his movie's population, Berri expends the necessary time for the lost art of characterization. There are certainly protagonists and antagonists, but simplistic labels like "hero," "villain," "good," and "evil" become irrelevant. There's a karmic sense of justice in the way things evolve, but this isn't one of those movies where the bad guys get their comeuppance in the final reel. Things play out more subtly, and with a much grander sense of tragedy."
Ordinary moviegoers appreciated the film no less highly. 73% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave this film a rating from 8 to 10. Taking into account this indicator and the above, the rating of Claude Berri's film "Jean de Florette" according to FilmGourmand was 9.187, thanks to which it took the 126th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
