Le Château de ma mère (1990)
Directed by Yves Robert

Film Review

Le Château de ma mère, the second part of Yves Robert's enormously popular diptych based on the childhood memoirs of the writer and filmmaker Marcel Pagnol, follows straight on from La Gloire de mon père, but is noticeably darker in tone.  Marcel is no longer the innocent little boy who is easily duped by man and nature; he stands on the threshold of adolescence and is beginning to see the world through an adult's eyes.  He realises that not everyone is quite what they seem to be, and that people are capable of deceit and outright cruelty, as well as kindness.   A pre-coming-of-age film, Le Château de ma mère offers a bittersweet account of a young boy slowly waking up to the artifices and cruel ironies of the adult world, shedding his illusions as he makes his first tentative steps towards adulthood.

In his books and films, Marcel Pagnol showed himself to be a very keen observer of the human condition, and Le Château de ma mère, based on the second part of his four volume autobiography, gives us some inkling of where this particular aptitude came from.  The characters we meet in this film are obviously the inspiration for many of those that populate his fictional work, from the good-natured lockkeeper to the literary poseur and a decidedly nasty country policeman (each superbly portrayed, by Philippe Uchan, Jean Rochefort and Jean Carmet respectively).  We may be inclined to reproach the film for its caricatured approach to characterisation, but we must remember that what we are seeing is the world through the eyes of a 12-year old boy.  At that age, character traits are bound to appear exaggerated. What this film and its predecessor are attempting to show us is not life as it is, from a balanced adult perspective, but life as it seems to be, from a child's point of view.

As in the first film, we share, through its stunning photography, Marcel Pagnol's enchantment for the Provence countryside.  But this time there is a palpable impression of melancholia and a growing feeling of loss, like an ugly strain slowly spreading across a pristine white tablecloth.  Marcel is aware of the passing of time, aware that his childhood is slipping away, aware that he must soon become a man and must bid farewell to his beloved countryside.  In an exquisitely poignant coda, Robert draws back the veil of time and shows us the future tragedies that the boy Marcel has yet to cope with, the loss of those dearest to him.  The film ends with Marcel Pagnol established as a man of the world, a successful filmmaker with the wherewithal to purchase the very house that once tyrannised his mother.  The ferocity with which the young film director is compelled to demolish one of the gates on the canal that had once separated him from his weekend paradise reminds us how intensely he clung to those childhood memories and how important they were in providing the foundation for his art.  Childhood is a garden from which we can never truly escape, nor would ever want to.  As adults, it is the only true refuge we have, as this highly evocative film reminds us.

Film Synopsis

After his previous summer, 11-year-old Marcel is so in love with the countryside of Provence that he can scarcely bear to be separated from it.  But his father Joseph, a school teacher in Marseille, insists that he should devote his thoughts to his schoolwork unless he wants to fail his impending exams.  Marcel and his younger brother Paul are beside themselves when their parents decide that the family will spend the whole of Christmas at the little house where they enjoyed such a memorable summer.  This gives Marcel a chance to renew his friendship with country boy Lili des Bellons.  The family returns to the region for their Easter holidays, and on this occasion Marcel falls under the spell of a pretty little girl named Isabelle, whom he mistakes for a real princess. 

How easily does the mischievous girl make a fool of the easily deluded boy!  He is such a silly romantic!  There seems to be no indignity he will not subject himself to in his efforts to prove himself a worthy knight.  Marcel realises his mistake in the end.  There are only so many humiliations the human spirit can bear and finally he sees through Isabelle and realises that she is no one special - just an ordinary child living in a dilapidated old house with her impoverished father.  His fanciful illusions well and truly shattered, Marcel loses interest in female company and returns to his first love - the mountains of Provence.

Aware of how happy his family are with their country retreat, Joseph decides that they will from now on come here every weekend.  The four kilometre trek from their home in Marseille presents a challenge, but this obstacle is alleviated when one of Joseph's former pupils, Bouzigue, offers him a shortcut along a stretch of canal.  This reduces the length of the journey by two hours!  Marcel and his family can hardly believe their good fortune, but their luck runs out when an over-zealous policeman spots them and files a complaint against Joseph which might cost him his job.  Bouzigue comes to the family's rescue, and they can continue their weekend trips to the country undisturbed.  When Marcel is a fully grown man, some years hence, he will buy one of the grand houses that his family used to furtively slip past every weekend - the house he now refers to as his mother's castle...