Herald rating: * * *
Cast: Jacques Gamblin, Jacques Villeret, Andre Dussollier, Michel Serrault, Eric Cantona
Director: Jean Becker
Running time: 115 mins
Rating: PG
Screening: Academy
Review: Peter Calder
A charming sunlit idyll set in 1930s France, this may tax the patience of those who can't understand the appeal of a
movie in which nothing much happens.
This is not to say there is no storyline, but the drama is in the detail and the film's charm resides in its unhurried, contemplative rhythms and its meticulous observations of daily life.
Among the inhabitants of the rural marshland, which is as much a character as a setting, are Garris (Gamblin), a veteran of the war and Riton (Villeret, the klutz who laughed last in The Dinner Game). The two make a living doing odd jobs and selling whatever they can harvest from their environment.
The rotund Riton, more devoted to wine than to his wife and three kids, relies on Garris to keep him out of trouble but he gets mixed up in a bar-room brawl and unwittingly scuttles the career of boxing champ Jo Sardi (Cantona, the former Manchester United footballer, in fine form).
Nothing - not even the prospect of the vengeful Sardi's release - can cast a shadow over life in the Marais. The men (the film is the French equivalent of what we would call blokey) pass the days and the seasons catching frogs and snails and getting in and out of scrapes.
These scenes are observed with a meditative eye for detail which at times lifts the film to the level of ethnography. The acting - an exemplary supporting cast includes Dussollier and Serrault as wealthy men lured by the simple life - is quiet and understated.
It's a moviegoer's equivalent of an afternoon nap - just as gentle and just as refreshing.
