Marcel Pagnol's childhood memories have spawned a true franchise
(1) la gloire de mon père (dir :Yves Robert)
(2) le château de ma mère (idem)
(3) le temps des secrets (MTV)
(4) le temps des amours.(MTV)
This theatrically released new version of (3) is very pleasant though nothing was ever to re-capture the luminous magic of (1) and (2).
Both versions of Pagnol's third volume feature the same characters but not always the same situation ; this one is more tuned into the times zeitgeist; when Marcel recites Victor Hugo's "après le bataille", check the date on the blackboard :it's 1905 ,the very year of the separation of the Church and the State ; this event is hinted at and Marcel 's daddy has the upper hand over Uncle Jules : "my paradise is here in Provence and I do not have to die to taste it "
Ditto for the Marcel/Isabelle relationship .Although she accepts him as an attentive escort ,she does not miss an opportunity to make him feel she's a noble and that he is almost "riffraff " to her .The decline of the aristocracy (replaced by the dominant bourgeoisie) is represented by the noble father who lost in job in a newspaper because he's a barfly.
Ditto for the scenes in high school ; the scenes are here similar to those of the MTV version ;a scholarship holder like Marcel is inferior to the bourgeois students whose wealthy family pays for their studies
Thus the class struggle is more prominent in Barattier's film ; but it does not overshadow the beauty of the Provençal landscapes , its wildlife , the camaraderie between an intellectual boy who would become a writer and a director famous around the world (Orson Welles praised "la femme du boulanger" aka"the baker's wife" )and a country uneducated Gavroche who knows the nature better than he does though.
We could expect another version of (4) ,but it does not seem it will be so ;after a wonderful epilogue which shows the grown-up Marcel walking in his beloved hills and remembering those dearest memories of long ago , the screenwriters reveal the other characters ' fates ,like Robert did at the end of (2).
