Manon of the Spring

The second installment in Claude Berri’s sprawling rural tragedy that began with JEAN DE FLORETTE, MANON OF THE SPRING follows a beautiful but shy shepherdess (Emmanuelle Béart) as she plots vengeance on the men whose greedy conspiracy to acquire her father’s land caused his death years earlier. Taken together, these masterful adaptations of the novel by Marcel Pagnol stand as high-water marks of the French cinema, recapturing the rich humanist tradition of its classical era.