My Father's Glory

Marcel Pagnol is best known in North America for Jean de Florette and Manon des sources, both successfully filmed in the 1980s by Claude Berri. But his first memoir — written when the veteran playwright and filmmaker was 62 — was this idyllic evocation of his childhood in Provence in 1905, when he was ten or 11 years old.

This is a rare film in which there’s virtually no dramatic conflict, and yet it’s as entrancing as a soft breeze on a warm summer’s day. Pagnol loved and respected his parents, and looked back on his childhood with an enviable serenity. If there’s an element of nostalgia, well, why not? Director Yves Robert (The War of the Buttons) filmed the rolling mountains of Provence in the manner of an Impressionist painter of the era, and watching the movie is like stepping into a canvas by Cezanne.

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My Father’s Glory creeps up on you with small moments of warmth and charm. Like all the best movies, these memories of Marcel Pagnol work by becoming our memories, as well.

Roger Ebert