Tonight on TV: impossible to hold back the tears at the end of this French film about childhood

Tonight on TV: impossible to hold back the tears at the end of this French film about childhood



My Mother’s Castle: the end of Marcel Pagnol’s story at the cinema

In 1990, director Yves Robert brilliantly adapted the first two volumes of Marcel Pagnol’s childhood memories, The glory of my father AND My mother’s castle, in two films released within a few months of each other. These film adaptations have become classics of French cinema, celebrated for their warmth, their nostalgia and their faithfulness to the writings of the great author Marcel Pagnol.

In my mother’s castle, Marcel and his family decide, much to the boy’s joy, to go to the Bastide Neuve every Saturday. It is also among its hills that it is located the knowledge of his first loveIsabelle, much to the regret of her friend Lili who feels abandoned.

The route from Marseille is difficult for the Pagnols, but the sewer of the Marseille canal, and Joseph’s former pupil, Bouzigue, provides them with a key that allows them to follow the waterway and pass through private property, to save precious time . But one day their trip goes wrong and this traumatizes Agostino.

A sublime bittersweet ending

Self My mother’s castle is the second volume of Pagnol’s Childhood Memories and, since the story continues in a third novel, Yves Robert has chosen to incorporate elements from this third chapter, The time of secretsin this second film, and to make it happen a conclusion to Marcel’s story. The film then ends with the voice-over of Marcel, an adult, who remembers a hot dinner at the Bastide Neuve, to tell the sad end of his loved ones: the death of his mother, then those of Paul, and of Lili, struck down by WWI.

A famous phrase is particularly striking, which moved the spectators to tears: This is the life of men. Few joys, soon erased by unforgettable pain. There is no need to tell the children.

In the epilogue we discover Marcel Pagnol, now an adult, when he founds his first film company, and who returns in the footsteps of “his mother’s castle”.

Source: Cine Serie

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