The Whole Valley Is Ours

Not Yours or Mine

French farmers have been teaching me how to live better since I was sixteen years old. That’s when I first saw Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, two films from the mid-Eighties, which portray rural life in Provence in the period immediately following the First World War. They’re beautiful movies (recently restored in 4K and available from Criterion), with immersive performances; classically-told stories directed with the kind of verisimilitude that implies the crew just took a time machine back to 1919 and starting filming. And in their humane gaze, they have a depth and empathy that deserves to be called Shakespearian.