The first two-thirds of this refilming of Marcel Pagnol's Marseilles trilogy have little of the originals' crackling, bawdy life
Actor-director Daniel Auteuil has been handed the prime gig/poisoned chalice of refilming Marcel Pagnol's Marseilles trilogy, two-thirds of which open in the UK this weekend. The beloved 1930s film treatments, artefacts of the early sound period, were largely stagebound yet possessed of a crackling, bawdy, close-to-the-source life. Auteuil has fashioned hidebound museum pieces that expand the backdrop with sun-dappled glimpses of port activity, while generally resisting any notes of modernity or change of emphasis. What modicum of cosy Sunday-afternoon pleasure they provide stems from the performers: Raphaël Personnaz (from Tavernier's The Princess of Montpensier) and Victoire Bélézy make a handsome couple as the barman Marius and his on-off sweetheart Fanny, while Auteuil and Jean-Pierre Darroussin are typically dependable as Marius's father and love rival respectively. Still, in 2013, this seems a peculiarly antiquated project for anybody to be undertaking: not just cinéma de papa, but cinema de grand-papa.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/nov/28/marius-fanny-review
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