La Gloire de mon père (1990)
Directed by Yves Robert

Film Review

The childhood memories of Marcel Pagnol are vividly brought to life in this sumptuous portrayal of Provençal life, circa 1900, the first part of an amibitious diptych directed by Yves Robert (the second instalment, Le Château de ma mère, was shot in parallel and released just a few months later).  Marcel Pagnol is of course the film director we most closely associate with Provence, through his literary masterpieces and films of the 1930s and 40s (most famously, his Marseille Trilogy), and Robert's film succeeds admirably in conveying the great man's intense love of the region, a love that began in his infancy.  Whilst critical reaction to the film was mixed, it was a substantial hit at the French box office, its audience of 6.3 million making it the most popular French film of 1990, substantially more successful than the year's other big hit, Cyrano de Bergerac, another lavish period piece.

Le Gloire de mon père takes its title and its content from the first of four autobiographical works by Marcel Pagnol, first published in 1957 - the others being: Le Château de ma mère, Le Temps des secrets and Le Temps des amours.  Pagnol had himself envisaged adapting the novel, but the encroaching years and difficulty in raising the necessary funds put paid to this ambition.  In the wake of his first big directing success, La Guerre des boutons (1962), Yves Robert was keen to adapt the novel, but he was unable to obtain the rights.  It would be almost thirty years before Robert could realise his dream project, at the age of 69.  His film is as much a tribute to Marcel Pagnol as it is to the region to which he lost his heart and which features so prominently in his own work.

An accomplished actor as well as a competent and versatile filmmaker, Yves Robert was at the height of his creative powers in the 1970s, when he made a series of very popular comedies (many of which are now considered classics of French cinema).  These include: Alexandre le bienheureux (1968), Le Grand blond avec une chaussure noire (1972) and Un éléphant ça trompe énormément (1976).  La Gloire de mon père is ayptical for Robert, one of the few films in which his subversive humour and penchant for mischievous caricature are conspicuous by their absence.  So as to be as faithful to Pagnol's original text as possible, Robert stifles his own auteur voice, perhaps to the detriment of the film.  Whilst it cannot be denied that La Gloire de mon père and its sequel are two of the most engaging of Yves Robert's films, and succeed effortlessly in capturing the raw beauty of the Provençal landscape, both films lack sparkle and have a tendency to conflate nostalgia with saccharine sentimentality.

Perhaps the main objection to La Gloire de mon père (the same applies to Le Château de ma mère) is its over-reliance on voiceover narration, a device that was popular in Pagnol's day but which nowadays appears clunky and intrusive (Pagnol himself rarely used it).  Even when the narration is lifted verbatim from the author's original novel, even when it is delivered by a voice as mellifluous as that of Jean-Pierre Darras, to have so much of the story narrated is poor filmmaking technique and serves merely to distance the spectator from the protagonists, who, as a consequence, barely have a chance to establish themselves.  This is a shame because the film is well-cast and the performances hard to fault; the characters are just not given the space to tell their own story, and as a result the film feels somewhat vague and shallow.

In all other respects, La Gloire de mon père is a pretty flawless production, its main selling point being its extraordinarily rich and alluring photography.  After Claude Berri's 1986 adaptation of Pagnol's Jean de Florette, you would have thought it impossible for a film to be more evocative of the beauty of Provence, but this is just what Yves Robert and his camera crew deliver.  Helped along by a chorus of humming cicadas, Vladimir Cosma's lush score complements the sumptuous visuals perfectly and is just as expressive of the splendour of Provence. 

La Gloire de mon père is the best piece of advertisement the region could have hoped for and, having watched the film, your first instinct is to go out and book a long summer holiday in Pagnol country.  Right from the first shot, the spectator's visual and aural senses are overwhelmed and you cannot help being transported into the earthly paradise that once fired the imagination of the eleven-year-old boy who was destined to become one of France's greatest auteurs. In his lifetime, Marcel Pagnol was always reluctant to allow others to adapt his own work, but you can't help feeling that he would have approved of this film, so powerfully does it capture the essence of the world that enchanted and inspired him.

Film Synopsis

In the late 1890s, Joseph Pagnol, a schoolteacher and staunch atheist, lives with his wife Augustine in a district of Marseille.  They have two young children, Marcel and Paul, the former showing a prodigious aptitude for learning at an early age.  One year, Joseph decides to spend his long summer holiday with his family in the heart of Provence.  He and his brother-in-law Jules, a Catholic, set aside their differences and agree to rent a house together, the ideal holiday home.  For the 11-year-old Marcel, the holiday proves to be something of a spiritual awakening.  He has barely been in the region five minutes before he loses his heart to it.  Its mountains, its rocks, its vegetation and wildlife captivate him and will leave a lasting impression.  When his father and Uncle Jules agree to go hunting one day, Marcel fears that his father's reputation is at stake...