A Magnificent Life

And a very fine film.

I became acquainted with Sylvain Chomet’s animation in 1997’s THE OLD LADY AND THE PIGEONS, a brilliantly dark short film that has to be seen, rather than described. There is no dialogue. None is needed.

The film is unmistakeably French in design and animation with no influence from American models. The art form developed simultaneously in both countries at the turn of the twentieth century but the animation styles are distinctly different. (If you ‘break’ an arm wherever the line of action demands it, or distort and stretch the entire character during a fast animated action, you are American.)

Ken Harris’ smears from THE DOVER BOYS (Warner Brothers, Chuck Jones, 1942)

If you only ‘break’ the arm at the joints, with beautiful overlap, you are French. The Triplets of Belleville demonstrate this beautifully. This was my favorite film of 2003.

I was not as fond of The Illusionist, (2006) although it was lovely to look at.

Then, after a lapse of a few years. word came that Sylvain Chomet was doing a biographical animated film about the multifaceted French artist Marcel Pagnol.

I wasn’t familiar with Pagnol’s work, or so I thought. I remember seeing footage of his funeral on the evening news in 1974 and wondering who he was. It turns out that two of the best films I saw in the Eighties, Jean de Florette and Manon of the Springs, were based on his novels. They were also adapted as graphic novels.

Poster for the film version, two book covers of the graphic novels.

The remarkable thing about Chomet’s animated films is that there is no ‘studio style’ linking them. Each must be taken on its own terms and viewed individually.

I saw A MAGNIFICENT LIFE with no preconceptions of what type of animation I would see.

It has a highly realistic animation style with heavy use of rotoscope. Did it need to be animated at all? Could it have been a live action film? Yes, and no. The story takes place in multiple dimensions over sixty four years in locations that have changed dramatically. Animation can create an emotional effect, and not merely record actors and locations. The art direction is a major part of the storytelling.

Did it need to be dubbed rather than subtitled in English? Yes. Pagnol describes himself as an artist who creates character through dialogue. The titles would have filled the entire screen.

Why do some of the characters have regional British accents? Pagnol came from Marseilles, a seaport town that Parisians considered uncultured and rustic. Pagnol and his new bride are derided as ‘country bumpkins’ by a rude driver when they first arrive in Paris. Their dialect is considered ‘unintelligible’ by a supercilious Parisian critic who walks out on Pagnol’s first play, MARIUS. Then it becomes a sensation. (Spoiler.) I enjoyed the sequence where Alexander Korda, a Hungarian director who worked in several countries, arrives to direct the 1931 film version for Les Films Paramount. The difficulties of the early sound equipment are humorously portrayed and shows just how much work went into making a motion picture before the advent of digital technology.

Pagnol’s entire ouvre is about the dignity, tragedy and comedy of the Marseillaise people, told in their own words and accents. Welsh-accented actors were chosen to dub the English version because Welsh is the oldest language in Europe and has no common roots with English. A Welsh-accented play staged in London might have met the same response that Pagnol’s Marseillaise play met, at first, in Paris.

Pagnol excelled at everything he did. His one artistic omission was children’s books, and when asked about this he ruefully states that his characters (cuckolded bakers and prostitutes) would not appeal to that particular audience.

I mentioned that the film takes place in multiple dimensions. At the risk of creating another spoiler, (since other reviews state that Pagnol talks to a younger version of himself), young Marcel is not the only spirit in the film. The story is Pagnol’s À la recherche du temps perdu. Young Marcel has been following him, unseen, throughout his career. Like Marley’s Ghost in A Christmas Carol, he only becomes visible at a crucial time in Pagnol’s life.

Although the film is very dialogue heavy it is never boring. There is action, and pathos, and even some comedy; conflicts (moral, not physical) during the Vichy France period; and a proud defense of French culture in Pagnol’s sadly prophetic words after the liberation of Paris and the signing of an ‘innocuous’ trade deal with the USA, represented by an increasingly defiant representative of Paramount Pictures.

The past and present merge at last when Pagnol recovers his inspiration on the way to his final destination.

At end of the film, we are all Pagnol.