Posted yesterday at 10:30 a.m.
There are obviously two ways to approach this film adaptation of the time of secretsthird of the four volumes that includes Childhood memories, the autobiographical novel by Marcel Pagnol. The first is to savor this old-fashioned entertainment, frozen in time, bathed in the light of Provence and smelling of local herbs. It’s like sinking into a big bubble of comforting nostalgia, just when the world appears at its most distressing. It is quite commendable.
The other way is to refuse to subscribe to this old cinema, which brings us back to a completely bygone era, where a film becomes neither more nor less than a beautiful picture book. Christophe Barratier, whose most outstanding feature films have been those whose plot is set in another era (The chorists, Suburb 36, The new button war), tried to create a dramatic thread from what was initially a series of short chronicles, but The time of secrets suffers from a staging that is sometimes too heavy and demonstrative.
If the young Léo Campion, chosen to embody Marcel Pagnol at the age of the first love emotions, is fair enough, the same cannot be said of the adults who surround him, not always at ease in this particular context.
We will still appreciate this sunny feature film for what it is, even if it is not up to the memory that we had left, 30 years ago, the diptych of Yves Robert The glory of my father – My mother’s castletaken from the first two volumes of Marcel Pagnol’s autobiographical novel.
Le temps des secrets is in theaters in Quebec
Drama
The time of secrets
Christophe Barratier
With Léo Campion, Mélanie Doutey, Guillaume De Tonquédec
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