Manon des Sources | |
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Directed by | Claude Berri |
Produced by |
Pierre Grunstein Alain Poiré |
Written by | Claude Berri Gérard Brach |
Starring |
Yves Montand Daniel Auteuil Emmanuelle Béart Hippolyte Girardot |
Music by | Jean-Claude Petit |
Cinematography | Bruno Nuytten |
Edited by |
Hervé de Luze Geneviève Louveau |
Distributed by | Pathé Distribution (EU) Orion Classics (USA) |
Release date
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Running time
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113 minutes |
Country | Italy France Switzerland |
Language | French |
Box office | 56.4 million € |
Manon des Sources (French pronunciation: [manɔ̃ de suʁs]; released in North America as Manon of the Spring) is a critically acclaimed and commercially successful 1986 French language film. Directed by Claude Berri, it is the second of two films adapted from the 1966 two-volume novel by Marcel Pagnol, who wrote it based on his own earlier film of the same title. It is the sequel to Jean de Florette.
Following the events of Jean de Florette, Manon, the daughter of Jean, is living in the countryside of Provence near Les Romarins, the farm that her father once owned. She has taken up residence with an elderly Piedmontese squatter couple who teach her to live off the land, tending to a herd of goats and hunting for birds and rabbits. Ugolin Soubeyran, also called Galinette (only by his uncle César), has begun a successful business growing carnations at Les Romarins with his uncle, César Soubeyran—also known as Papet—thanks to the water provided by the spring there.
After seeing her bathe nude in the mountains, Ugolin develops an interest in Manon. When he approaches her, she seems disgusted by his vileness and almost certainly by the memory of his involvement in her father's downfall. But Ugolin's interest in Manon becomes obsessive, culminating in sewing a ribbon from her hair onto his chest. At the same time, Manon becomes interested in Bernard, a handsome and educated schoolteacher recently arrived in the village. As a small child, Manon had suffered the loss of her father, who died from a blow to the head while using explosives in an attempt to find the water source. César and Ugolin then bought the farm cheaply from his widow—Manon's mother—and unblocked the spring. Manon witnessed this as a child. The two men profited directly from his death.
When she overhears two villagers talking about it, Manon realises that many in the village knew of the crime but had remained silent, for the Soubeyran family was locally important. While searching for a goat that fell into a crevice above the village, Manon finds the underground source of the spring that supplies water to the local farms and village. To take her revenge on both the Soubeyrans and the villagers, who knew but did nothing, she stops the flow of water using the iron-oxide clay and rocks found nearby.