Should you see only one film from Jean-Paul Paulin 's very erratic production, it would be this one.
Plot : a mas (farm in Provence ) where the owner runs into difficulties:he's indebted to his own son-in-law ,who intends to sell the place and to live in Arles town with his wife,Frederique , who does not love him at all (it was a money match) ; a poacher , Fabregas welcomes his son Jean back from Morrocco : he's proud as a peacock for the young man has become a NC officer ,very spick and span in his uniform.Frederique's sister , Margarido , falls for him,but alas , he prefers the married woman and the feeling is mutual.
The screenplay was deemed "derivative" ,and it's absolutely true ; "les filles du Rhone" is a film of love for a French region ,la Camargue, its herds of bulls and of horses , its "gardians" (French cowboys) , its farandoles in costume to the sound of fifes and tambourines, its bullfights in the streets.
The outline I wrote is only a bend in a most extraordinary river ,just like the Rhone delta : there are actually many characters ,and it's to Paulin's credit to have been able to make them live in this wild marshy flat landscape (the film was filmed on location ) : the poacher (Pierre Larquey) although at odds with the gamekeeper who releases him when his wife tells him that he provides them with hares (nine gamekeepers out of ten are cuckolds ;maybe you are lucky enough to be the tenth!); the gypsies are present all along the movie for their pilgrimage takes place in Saintes-Maries -De -La-Mer town ,on the Camargue coast :one of them ,Belà ,is in love with Margarido ,the girl of the mas, but he knows from the start this flame is hopeless ;his sister is played by none other than Madeleine Sologne ,her hair dyed blonde to black , a sensual wild girl Frederique's husband tries to seduce with a gold bangle .
Militarism seems to exert a great fascination on this director ,but here,it is kept to the minimum : the man who's about to marry his less-than-pretty daughter insists the NC officer be the best man and mainly he be in uniform ; in both his follow-ups , "trois de saint-cyr" and "le chemin de l'honneur ", army life glory would be the main subject.
A film of love for a region , its inhabitants and its animals too :the first sequence depicts the death of an old bull .Much to his gardian's surprise ,the owner of the mas won't sell the meat to a butcher because "the old beast has deserved to rest in peace under its good old earth "; then in an admirable sequence towards the denouement ,one sees the bull's tombstone ....."he who does not love animals doesn't love Camargue" .
And the people who made this movie do!
