La Fille Du Puisatier / The Well-Digger's Daughter - Review

A note for locals: This film is currently showing at the Art House Cinema 502 on 25th Street in Ogden. It is very intimate and most certainly not your Megaplex experience. If you haven't been to this unique little theater you might give it a try. They specialize in the art, documentary and foreign films that you won't see at the major chains. Art House Cinema 502 .

The Well-Digger's Daughter

(2012)

Runtime: 1hr 47min.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Rating: Not Rated - French, English Subtitles

Director: Daniel Auteuil
Writer: Daniel Auteuil

Stars: Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Daniel Auteuil, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Kad Merad, Nicolas Duvauchelle and Sabine Azéma (See full cast and crew)

 

Grade: A-

In pre-World War I France, a father is torn between his sense of honor and his deep love for his saintly daughter when she becomes involved with a handsome young pilot, the son of a wealthy shopkeeper, who abandons her when called up for the frontlines.
 

Twenty-five years after rising to international acclaim in Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring, Daniel Auteuil returns to the world of Marcel Pagnol for his first work as director with this celebrated remake of the 1940s classic. Auteuil stars as the eponymous well-digger Pascale, a widower living with his six daughters in the Provence countryside at the start of World War I. His eldest, Patricia (the luminous Astrid Bergès-Frisbey), has returned home from Paris to help raise her sisters, and Pascale dreams of marrying her off to his loyal assistant Felipe (Kad Merad). But when she's impregnated by a wealthy young pilot (Nicolas Duvauchelle) who promptly abandons her for the frontlines, Pascale is left to contend with the consequences. -- (C) Kino Lorber

Social conventions, class and World War I are the powerful forces in conflict with a young woman’s search for happiness.  Can she ever find her place in a rapidly changing world? 

Actor/director/screen adaptor Daniel Auteuil has created a respectful remake of Marcel Pagnol’s The Well-Digger’s Daughter (Paperback here). Pascal Amoretti digs and repairs wells.  It is hard but honest work and still a very necessary trade in the southern France provincial towns during the early Twentieth Century.  He is a widower blessed and cursed with a brood of six girls.  Amoretti has come to rely on the help of his eldest, Patricia, to manage the household. She has reached marriageable age, 18.  Amoretti's older employee Felipe Rambert, who is smitten with Patricia would be a suitable match and would work out nicely for this working class patriarch. Patricia eyes, however,  see are set upon Jacques Mazel, a handsome, dashing and daring young officer and pilot who also happens to be the son of the town’s well-to-do owner of the local hardware store.

In spite of knowing the impossibility of any future they could ever have with each other, young Patricia falls hard and fast for the military aviator. They make plans for another tryst but the night before he is shipped out to the front.  When Jacques is reported missing-in-action behind enemy lines, shortly after, the now pregnant Patricia confides with her father, her predicament and shame.  The Mazels, Jacques' parents, are grieving at the loss of their only son and are adamantly not interested in acknowledging the working class girl. Her traditional father is at a loss, unable to see a way around societal constraints and the harm an unwed expectant mother will be to the reputation of his five remaining younger daughters. Pascale tells her she must leave the family forever, he sends her away to live with his estranged sister, who has also 'done foolish things' in her past 'she'll know what to do'.

Patricia's future, though fallen, is not set in stone. Some people will rise from the ashes and redeem themselves.  Despite societal labels and the village gossips, hers is really a story of virtue restored. First time director Auteuil keeps the film concretely grounded in the characters’ natural and social environments. It is beautifully shot and honest to the period (with the possible exception of the bi-winged stunt planes at the air show, I'm not sure how accurate those are).

Auteuil is already a favorite of the Pagnol estate after his career-making performances in Claude Berri’s Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring. He is reportedly developing more Pagnol projects.

As the dignified and painfully conflicted father Pascale (Daniel Auteuil), sets the tone for the deeply empathetic Well-Digger's Daughter.  Felipe (Kad Merad Rambert) Pascale's coworker, is more than just a big likable lug he is a gentle and profoundly understanding old soul. Patricia (Astrid Berges-Frisbey) is moving in her scenes with her father and also exhibits convincing chemistry with Jacques Mazel (Nicolas Devauchelle) who is not really as caddish as he first appears to be.  Well-Digger's Daughter is a very forgiving film, it pardons the transgressions of everyone, even the severe Mme. Mazel.

The Well-Digger's Daughter's old-fashioned style of is truly its strongest virtue.  Perhaps its rigid class-consciousness will be lost on some, especially the perpetual social-climbers but I think most viewers will be lulled by artful and lush pastoral cinematography of Jean-François Robin and by Alexandre Desplat’s nostalgic score.

This is a handsome, beautifully dressed period production. If you are a lover of literary drama of a Francophile, The Well-Digger’s Daughter is most certainly recommended, but you don't have to be to enjoy this charming and heartwarming film.

Cast