The conclusion of Claude Berri’s Jean de Florette hinted rather broadly that Jean’s young daughter, Manon, would be putting a serious beating on the last surviving Soubeyran’s; the self-interested scheming Caesar and his simpleton, morally dichotic, nephew, Ugolin. Failing that, I hoped that Manon would be removed from the story entirely, and would become, like the first film, only a silent observer. I had hoped for the same comedic to tragic arc, or a tragic to comic arc, mirroring the first installment. Alas, that wasn’t to be.
I find it hard to rationalize that both of these films were shot simultaneously, with the same director at the helm; that Jean de Florette’s sophisticated palette could be related to this second…