Jean de Flo­rette is a 1986 French com­e­dy-dra­ma film direct­ed by Claude Berri and based on a nov­el by one of France’s great­est 20^th cen­tu­ry writ­ers, Mar­cel Pag­nol. The film takes place in rur­al Provence, where two local farm­ers (Yves Mon­tand and Daniel Auteuil) plot to trick a new­com­er (Gérard Depar­dieu) out of his new­ly inher­it­ed prop­er­ty. The film thus stars three of France’s most promi­nent actors, and this is a great place to see them all in action in one place.

The film was shot back to back with its sequel, Manon des Sources, over a peri­od of sev­en months in and around the Vau­cluse depart­ment of Provence, and whilst at the time it was the most expen­sive French film ever made, it was also a great com­mer­cial and crit­i­cal suc­cess, both domes­ti­cal­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly, and was nom­i­nat­ed for eight César awards, and ten BAF­TAs. The suc­cess of the two films helped pro­mote Provence as a tourist des­ti­na­tion (a ten­den­cy that was cement­ed three years lat­er when Peter Mayle’s best-sell­ing mem­oir, A Year in Provence, was pub­lished ).

Any­way, I have my mate Jason’s wife Liz to thank for intro­duc­ing me to Jean de Flo­rette: whilst at their house sev­er­al years ago, she thrust the DVD of the film into my hands, say­ing “you’ll love this”. I took it home and duti­ful­ly watched it…and she was right! What was at first sight an obscure French film with a dull name and an odd plot became a huge­ly enjoy­able ride. The plot is indeed unusu­al, involv­ing jeal­ous designs on rur­al arable land, hare-brained plans and machi­na­tions around the block­ing up of a nat­ur­al spring. How­ev­er, it is a joy to watch: the rur­al vil­lage scenes are so glo­ri­ous­ly, authen­ti­cal­ly French, and the char­ac­ters con­jured up by these great actors, and a strong sup­port­ing cast, are tremen­dous.

This scene I have cho­sen is pret­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tive, I think: we have Depardieu’s irre­press­ibly opti­mistic Jean, pros­e­lytis­ing about his plans to breed rab­bits and grow mar­rows, Auteuil’s Ugolin try­ing at every turn to dis­suade and dispir­it him, and Montand’s Le Papet (Ugolin’s uncle), a wily owl pre­sid­ing over his and Ugolin’s schemes to dri­ve the new­com­er away and take the land for them­selves.