This great, great movie - along with its necessary follow-up, Manon Of The Spring - features one of the best stories, best casts, best cinematography, best direction, best scripts of all time. And Gerard Depardieu was never better. Great to see an aging Yves Montand at his very best, too, as the evil, scheming Cesar. Stick with it - through its many twists and turns. On the surface, it is a gentle movie, at a gentle pace, but it bubbles with an underlying tension that never quits - through to the end of Part 2 (Manon Of The Spring). When I first saw this film, I couldn't wait for Manon Of The Spring to come out, to find out how the story finally ended. It's that good. You will be enraptured, get involved with the characters, and care about them intensely to the very end. This film - and its Part 2 - are so far above the quality of the average American film these days it's not funny. This is the kind of film Hollywood should be putting out. It speaks volumes about the human tendency toward pettiness, cruelty and jealousy - and the terrible consequences of this kind of behavior. A tragedy almost on a Shakespearean level (certainly Shakespeare would have been proud to have written it) - this is one of the greatest movies ever made. The ending - which comes with the next movie - will absolutely devastate and haunt you. About the subtitles (this movie is in French) - you have got to put up with that because otherwise you will miss out on an exceptional experience you will never forget.
Review of Jean de Florette
