Manon of the Spring (1986)

IMDb plot summary: A beautiful but shy shepherdess plots vengeance on the men whose greedy conspiracy to acquire her father's land caused his death years earlier.

Directed by Claude Berri. Starring Yves Montand, Emmanuelle Beart, and Daniel Auteuil.

Manon of the Spring is the sequel to the 1983 French film Jean de Florette, in which a hunchback farmer buys a farm, only for two local locals to deliberately sabotage his water supply, and then after the farmer's untimely death they buy the property cheaply, un-sabotage the water supply, and thrive. This story is set a decade or so later, when one of the two unsavory locals falls in love with the daughter of the original farmer, who knows what they did to her father. While I found the first film absolutely devastating, this gave me slightly less to connect to emotionally. In the first movie, Jean is our protagonist and we follow him through most of the story. Here, I think Manon is supposed to fill that role for us, but she is such an internal character that she is harder to connect with, and the antagonists get just as much if not more screen time. The ending is satisfying, though, and carries a strong thread of humanity through the whole story. I do suspect I have let too long go between watching the first movie and watching this one, and my reaction to this could be very different if I watched the two back to back, so I will definitely have to make time to do that at some point in future, and will report back on how that changes things, but for now this movie is a good but ever-so-slightly disappointing watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Manon of the Spring > The Keep

Manon of the Spring > Munich

Manon of the Spring < Walking and Talking

Manon of the Spring < The Swimmer

Manon of the Spring > Is It College Yet?

Manon of the Spring > The Shape of Water

Manon of the Spring < Mars Attacks!

Manon of the Spring < Witness

Manon of the Spring > Back to the Future Part III

Manon of the Spring < The Joy Luck Club

Manon of the Spring < Don't Drink the Water (1994)

Manon of the Spring < Encanto

Final spot: #711 out of 3537, or 80%, which is higher than I expected.