I happened to catch this sweet film at the Alliance Francais French Film Festival in Adelaide today, as my French class went for an excursion. I was pleasantly surprised. The Well Diggers Daughter is a simple story: set during World War I in France, the young daughter (Patricia Amoretti) of a poor well digger falls in love with a young, handsome, rich pilot (Jaques Mazel). They share some moments together, but almost immediately he is called away to fight on the front line in the war. He leaves and three weeks later is presumed dead, due to his plane being shot down in flames and crashing behind enemy lines. Meanwhile, the young well diggers daughter is now pregnant. Shocked, her father disowns her and sends her to live with her aunt.

The Well Diggers Daughter was a nice, feel-good movie about family and young love. All the characters were very well acted, in particular the father (who I'm pretty sure was actually played by the film's director).

The scenery was just gorgeous. In almost every scene, there were these beautiful wide, establishing shots of the countryside, which always had a lot of trees, barely any civilization and lots of sunshine and waving grasses.

The music was also great. I noticed in the credits that all the music was composed by a personal favorite: Alexandre Desplat, who actually wrote the music for New Moon (that was a bad movie, but the music was beautiful).

The only problem I have with this movie is that it was a bit cheesy. Especially at the end, everything was sorted out perfectly fine, with everybody happy. And rather abruptly, the character of Jaques came back, perfectly fine, from the war, where he was meant to have died. I was disappointed by that, not that he lived of course, but that everything was suddenly just fine.

It was an enjoyable, sweet film about family and love.

8/10

The Well Digger's Daughter (2011)

A drama set in the early 20th Century that ends up being about traditions and love and how two different kinds of families come to understand each other. While not a Romeo and Juliet story at all, it has that basic problem when two young people from different social realms fall in love.

What keeps this from becoming commonplace is the beauty of it all, including what I would call beautiful acting--heartfelt, nuanced, interesting. In a way it is the well digger, the dad played by Daniel Autueil who is the main character. He's a familiar face (if not name) to those who have seen a few French films, and he's wonderful. Though a practical man (he digs wells the old fashioned way for a living), he has a sense of dignity and honor that impresses even the rich family whose charming son has seduced the title character.

We feel no violation here, just the normal confused crossed-star love issues. War intrudes, and then the dreaded report from the front, and the families still have to cope together. For reasons you'll see.

Marcel Pagnol, the great mid-Century French writer whose story is the basis for this, was also a filmmaker, and you can feel a kind of homage or influence at play here, which adds yet another layer of appreciation.

It's also a really funny movie, one of the dramas that is so witty and warm you laugh along with the characters like you would your friends (assuming you have funny friends). I loved the whole experience. If it ends with a feeling like, okay, all is resolved one way or another, I guess that's fine. There is no epiphany here, but rather a sweet slice of life from a provincial time we'd love to never forget.