Jean de Florette

120 minutes | Rated PG

The first part of Claude Berri's two-part adaptation of a Marcel Pagnol novel, with Gerard Depardieu as a noble hunchback trying to start a new life as a farmer in southwest France, Yves Montand as a wily local peasant out to cheat him out of his property, and Daniel Auteuil as the latter's naive nephew. Not really a complete work without Manon of the Spring, the sequel, but Bruno Nuytten's cinematography and Berri and Gerard Brach's script keep things moving along pleasantly and professionally (1986). In French with subtitles. By Jonathan Rosenbaum