It\u2019s a little wild to contemplate that a studio would put such faith in audiences to come see a multi-part literary adaptation on the big screen. Usually that only happens these days with established, Y.A.-skewing franchises like Twilight <\/em>or The<\/em> Hunger Games<\/em>. Highbrow fare like Hilary Mantel\u2019s Wolf Hall<\/em> series is relegated to television which, to be fair, offers more generous runtimes for sprawling storylines. Taken together, Jean de Florette<\/em> and Manon of the Spring <\/em>would make up just four hour-long episodes \u2013 barely a miniseries in our bloated era. But that only makes their joint achievement all the more miraculous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was something of a miracle at the time, too. Shot on location in an isolated area of Provence, production was an arduous and complex process in a way that often matched the source material, a tale of grand plans gone awry, undone by greed, treachery, and that fickle mistress, fate. With a title like Jean de Florette<\/em>, you\u2019d be forgiven for thinking him the protagonist of the story. But he doesn\u2019t actually appear until almost thirty minutes in. First we\u2019re introduced to the scheming C\u00e9sar Soubeyran (the legendary Yves Montand) and his nephew Ugolin (Daniel Auteuil), who has recently returned from the battlefields of World War I. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ugolin has brought back carnation grafts and hopes to grow the flowers on his land, but they require abundant water to thrive. The Soubeyrans have their eye on an adjacent property that has access to a spring, but the owner won\u2019t sell. When he dies following an altercation with C\u00e9sar, the farm is left to the man\u2019s sister, Florette; it\u2019s suggested that she and C\u00e9sar have a history. But he has a sinister plan in mind: he and Ugolin plug up the spring in the hopes it will dissuade others from buying the land should she decide to sell. Instead news arrives that she\u2019s passed away and it all goes to her son Jean (G\u00e9rard Depardieu), a tax collector and hunchback whose idealistic hopes for \u201cauthentic cultivation\u201d will soon bring him into conflict with his new neighbors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a classic city versus country set-up, albeit one with Biblical dimensions. Cinematographer Bruno Nuytten captures the idiosyncrasies of the pastoral landscape, which is both beautiful and unforgiving, especially to outsiders like Jean. His bourgeois furnishings and modern techniques make him an object of ridicule for the villagers, but they also work, at least for a time. His rabbits and crops thrive; while Ugolin frets, C\u00e9sar preaches patience, knowing Jean\u2019s innovations will be no match for the summer heat ahead if he has no water at hand. Jean cannot fathom why God has cursed him but we do. Meanwhile his watchful daughter Manon (played as a child by Ernestine Mazurowna) grows increasingly wary of the Soubeyrans, though she won\u2019t recognize the full extent of their villainy until her father has already met his inevitable ruin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a testament to the strength of both films that Manon of the Spring<\/em> isn\u2019t merely a continuation of the first part but an expansion of it. This is the \u201cchickens coming home to roost\u201d portion of the story, when the seeds of betrayal planted in Jean de Florette<\/em> flourish as vengeance. Picking up roughly ten years down the line, Manon (now played by Emmanuelle B\u00e9art) has grown into a stunning beauty. Referred to as the \u201clittle savage\u201d by the townspeople, she lives a feral existence, tending a flock of goats and cannily evading anyone who crosses her path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Time has been comparatively kind to the Soubeyrans: Ugolin\u2019s carnation business has prospered while many of the more elderly farmers are beginning to pack it in. Still, C\u00e9sar is not content simply to enjoy the spoils of their fortune. He\u2019s thinking about the future, namely their family\u2019s lack of one since neither he nor his nephew have married or produced an heir. He pushes Ugolin to think about taking a wife, not realizing the hunchback\u2019s daughter has caught his eye. She, understandably, is repulsed by the affections of a man whose avarice caused the death of her beloved father. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the Soubeyrans didn\u2019t act alone in that. The stopped spring might have been their handiwork, but years of secrets kept, truths withheld, and villagers willfully looking the other way also contributed to Jean\u2019s demise. When Manon overhears two hunters admitting as much, she hatches a scheme of her own, one whose consequences will prove disastrous not just for Ugolin and C\u00e9sar but the livelihood of the entire town. It all culminates in a cascade of tragedies worthy of Greek drama, complete with public denunciations, a suicide, and revelations that come too late to make any difference. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Berri and his crew went to great lengths to maintain historical accuracy during filming, and their meticulous attention shows in the final products, which have an immersive quality rarely reached in modern cinema. Both Jean <\/em>and Manon <\/em>are attuned to the rhythms of rural labor, particularly their unique hardships, and the actors bore many of those physical burdens over the thirty-week shoot. There was emotional wreckage too: Montand\u2019s wife of thirty-four years, actress Simone Signoret, died while he was on location. He was only away from set one day for her funeral.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Watching the films now invites a certain nostalgia for when studios invested in such lavish productions, and audiences reliably went to see them. But Jean de Florette<\/em> and Manon of the Spring<\/em> are also marked by their lack of sentimentality. At the end of the day, these are stories about how easily men can turn on one another, especially when precious resources are perceived as scarce. Human relations require as much tending as a crop field. To value one over the other can lead them both to perish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Jean de Florette<\/i>” and “Manon of the Spring<\/i>” are available on 4K and Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/manon1-1024x430.jpg\")
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