Germinal

The pacing of this film was very well done. Not a scene didn't feel like it didn't belong. The production and the recreation of the era was very convincing, much credit to the director who got this right when it's so easy to get it wrong.

The acting was excellent, Depardieu as always fantastic, he was convincing as a hard-working simple man finally at breaking point. The brute was played excellently. Lantier won me over as the film went along. And if I remember correctly the Russian(or Polish) anarchist from the book stole every scene he was in. And of the course the women...(except for that one scene haha) Some people are saying this film is too leftist, but there are scenes to differ as with the book. Essentially a idea proposed is that a working man given a fortune will inevitably go down the same path as the bourgeois. They feel at once hate and envy.

A very good film and very grim but not nearly so much as the book.