All Picks

WHAT IT'S ABOUT:

In Marseilles in the late 1920s, irrepressible cafe owner Cesar (Raimu) keeps up the chatter as he slings drinks at the Bar de la Marine. His son, Marius (Fresnay), is deeply in love with fish-stall owner Fanny (Demazis), but his attraction to the seafaring life exerts an equally strong pull. Meanwhile, he has a rival in wealthy, older Panisse (Fernand Charpin), which Fanny works to her advantage. Pagnol continues their story in “Fanny” and then “Cesar,” catching up to these characters 20 years on.

WHY I LOVE IT:

A staple of both French popular culture and world cinema, Pagnol’s gently satirical look at love and heartbreak (“Marius,” “Fanny,” “Cesar”) is as humanistic as anything Jean Renoir committed to celluloid, and just as exhilarating. Based on Pagnol’s own monumentally successful stage plays, and featuring much of the same cast as his theater productions, these films not only feature full-blooded, three-dimensional characters (there are no heroes and villains in Pagnol’s vision), they are also steeped in the geography and rough speech of southern France in the’ 20s and ’30s. Every detail in these lovingly crafted films, all shot on location in Marseilles and overseen by the playwright, simply magnify the greatness of Pagnol’s inimitable art.

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