The children of the swamp : Jean Becker’s haven of peace
Before A crime in paradise AND Terrible gardensJean Becker directs Jacques Villeret in his fifth feature film, The children of the swamp. In this dramatic comedy released in 1999 and set in 1932, the actor plays Riton, a simple man who drowns his sorrows in alcohol and spends most of his time with Garris (Jacques Gamblin), a dreamer deeply affected by the First World War.
Between two jobs, they meet by the sea and are often joined by Amédée (André Dussollier), Pépé la Rainette (Michel Serrault), a local child who has made his fortune, and Marie (Isabelle Carré), whose servant Garris is in love. Suzanne Flon, Éric Cantona, Gisèle Casadesus, Jacques Boudet and Julie Marboeuf complete the cast of the film, which finds its audience in theaters. If the film attracted more than 2.1 million French spectators upon its release, is massacred by the press.
“Pâté de campaigns”, “Pétainismo lite”…
While The Dauphiné Libéré praises the fact of “rediscover the pleasure of cinema from times gone by” AND Le Figaro respect The children of the swamp to “a green bomb” in the “French cinematic landscape, rather black and urban”, Publication it’s not kind to the feature film. In the daily columns you can read (via The weather):
After showing off Adjani’s quiff in front of France, amazed in his triumph Killer summer, Jean Becker signs Children of the Marsh, a country paté that is selling these days to the tune of the film against violence and sex at the cinema. We think we are dreaming.
Same story inside The world :
The figures of the grandmother’s cake, the mischievous bourgeois or the inaccessible beauty provide the material for numbers of blessed franchouillardis who would not have appeared at first freshness in the times of Branquignol. Characters, landscapes and adventures almost have the ambition and tone of the images that once accompanied chocolate bars: today, on the big screen, they are at best a bland indulgence, at worst a light TV series pétainism.
Critics who hurt Jean Becker at the timeas he confides on the microphone ofAssigned in 2012 :
Since a whole circuit of critics doesn’t like what I do, they generally murder me. Now it’s over, I don’t care, they can say whatever they want, it doesn’t affect me anymore. But at a certain point it touched me, especially regarding this film, because I read the book (by Georges Montforez, ed.) at 20 years old, and I said that one day I will make a film about it, to show exactly what rurality is. , the simplicity life was. (…) And that other idiot praises me for making a Pétainist film, so I can’t believe it.
Source: Cine Serie
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