Dialogue avec mon jardinier (2007)
(Conversations with my Gardener)
Country: FR
Technical: col/2.35:1 109m
Director: Jean Becker
Cast: Daniel Auteuil, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Fanny Cottençon
Synopsis:
A painter returning to the family house in the south of France, employs a local to restore the garden to its former state, only to discover they had once been at school together. There begins a relationship of easy familiarity which gets its dynamic from the fact that the two come at life from quite different perspectives.
Review:
Tender-hearted two-hander with that same conservative streak running through it as many a French historical film its star has played in. In this case there is a bucolic idealism and sense of permanence which run counter to the painter's life in the metropolis (cue the gardener's comment on the number of cars on the roads - he rides a mobylette). In the focus on property, both in Paris and his parents' house and garden, there are elements of the L'Heure d'été sub-genre of films about family that abounded at the time. The preoccupation with names, nicknames and modes of address are also perhaps part of this conservatism (the gardener persists in alluding to the mistress as 'Madame Magda'). As it says on the tin little more than a series of conversations, but beautifully lit and sensitively acted, particularly by Darroussin.
(Conversations with my Gardener)
Country: FR
Technical: col/2.35:1 109m
Director: Jean Becker
Cast: Daniel Auteuil, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Fanny Cottençon
Synopsis:
A painter returning to the family house in the south of France, employs a local to restore the garden to its former state, only to discover they had once been at school together. There begins a relationship of easy familiarity which gets its dynamic from the fact that the two come at life from quite different perspectives.
Review:
Tender-hearted two-hander with that same conservative streak running through it as many a French historical film its star has played in. In this case there is a bucolic idealism and sense of permanence which run counter to the painter's life in the metropolis (cue the gardener's comment on the number of cars on the roads - he rides a mobylette). In the focus on property, both in Paris and his parents' house and garden, there are elements of the L'Heure d'été sub-genre of films about family that abounded at the time. The preoccupation with names, nicknames and modes of address are also perhaps part of this conservatism (the gardener persists in alluding to the mistress as 'Madame Magda'). As it says on the tin little more than a series of conversations, but beautifully lit and sensitively acted, particularly by Darroussin.
(Conversations with my Gardener)
Country: FR
Technical: col/2.35:1 109m
Director: Jean Becker
Cast: Daniel Auteuil, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Fanny Cottençon
Synopsis:
A painter returning to the family house in the south of France, employs a local to restore the garden to its former state, only to discover they had once been at school together. There begins a relationship of easy familiarity which gets its dynamic from the fact that the two come at life from quite different perspectives.
Review:
Tender-hearted two-hander with that same conservative streak running through it as many a French historical film its star has played in. In this case there is a bucolic idealism and sense of permanence which run counter to the painter's life in the metropolis (cue the gardener's comment on the number of cars on the roads - he rides a mobylette). In the focus on property, both in Paris and his parents' house and garden, there are elements of the L'Heure d'été sub-genre of films about family that abounded at the time. The preoccupation with names, nicknames and modes of address are also perhaps part of this conservatism (the gardener persists in alluding to the mistress as 'Madame Magda'). As it says on the tin little more than a series of conversations, but beautifully lit and sensitively acted, particularly by Darroussin.