Manon of the Spring

Continuing on from the story of "Jeanne de Florette", we have advanced many years to find "Ugolin" (Daniel Auteuil) and his uncle "Papet" (Yves Montand) running a thriving carnation business perfectly watered by their own spring. Indeed it's quite a feet of irrigation that has enabled them to enhance the family fortune by at least 50,000 Francs. As ever, though, "Papet" is looking to the future of his dynasty and so continues to pressurise "Ugolin" to marry. He's quite happy with the odd visit to the local whorehouse until he discovers "Manon". She (Emmanuelle Béart) is the daughter of the previous owners of the property and after her father's untimely death is now reduced to goat-herding in the hills. A chance encounter with new teacher "Bernard" (Hippolyte Girardot) seems to offer her the prospect of some joy, but it annoys the clearly infatuated "Ugolin" who declares his undying love for her - all to no avail. Gradually, village gossip about her father and his fate reaches her ears and thanks to a wayward goat, she finds herself in the position to wreak a little revenge on the "Soubeyran" clan and their complicit supporters. What will assuage her wrath? I didn't enjoy this so much as the first part of the story. Though it effectively deals with retribution and, to a certain extent, the superstitious nature of religiosity, it doesn't really develop the character of "Manon" as much as I'd have liked and it is a little as what can so often be said of the second act of a play - slightly rushed. It also, thanks to village elder "Delphine" (Yvonne Gamy), introduces a further degree of tragedy into this already sad story that seems odd to have been such a long-kept secret in a place where everyone knew just about everything about everyone else. Auteuil is again effective, though, as is a Montand whose character starts to lose a bit of his confident smugness as tables begin to turn and he faces his own, life-altering catastrophe. Béart brings a naive innocence to her character - but that's not to say she's meek, far from it - and by the denouement I felt that maybe things were concluding fittingly. It looks great and the score from Jean-Claude Petit sets the whole thing off nicely. Both films together offer us quite a poignant look at human nature - warts and all, and are really well worth watching. Just what do they do with the thrushes?