Product: Manon of the Spring (1987)
Rating: 5.0
UNFORTUNATE THESE REVIEWS SEE NO MORE THAN BLURRED NUDE SCENE
Please see this film in conjunction with Jean de Florette, which pictures the tragedy of Manon's father unjustly stripped of his inherited farm by a covetous poor farmer who wishes to take it and grow chrysanthemums upon it, and so stops up the hidden spring with a rock.The nude scene mentions comes after this vile character steals the land for nothing when it is abandoned due to driness, when he releases the spring, and Manon, now grown sneaks back onto her former family property to bathe in the previously unknown spring. THen the vile character covets her as well.This story of the first film, Jean de Florette, runs as inevitable Grecian tragedy building on the prideful ignorance of Jean, the main character. He does not know of the spring which was blocked and concealed by the neighbor who desires not only his land to grow chrysthanthemums upon, but one day when she blooms, his daughter Manon. With the conspiracy of friends, this covetous neighbor blocks the spring which would bring life and fertility to the farm. Jean tries everything including tragically dynamite to bring the waters to flow with abundant life.When all is too late we discover unknown family ties which would have made Jean not a rejected outsider intruding upon and rejected by this enclosed and impoverished mountain farming community but embraced as a lost son. The inevitable development and tragedy of these two films together is as stately as as horrifying as a trilogy of ancient Greek plays, as profound and as universal. Watch them carefully and rivers of understanding will wash you with renewed humanity.