What a beautiful movie!

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

A different way of telling a story

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

In mid-nineteenth-century northern France, a coal mining town's workers are exploited by the mine's owner. One day, they decide to go on strike, and the authorities repress them.First, my confession: I have not read "Germinal". I've thought about it, but among all the great works of literature, it never quite made it to the top of the list. That being said, from what I hear, this film follows the story rather close.What strikes me is how much "smut" the film has. At least in the first half. I find it hard to imagine such things being in the novel, but rural men forcing themselves on rural women in France seems oddly normal. I guess my opinion of France is pretty strange.

Berri once again turns a book into a near masterpiece, as he did with "Jean de Florette" and "Manon of the Spring". This adaptation of Emile Zola's dark polemic novel abut the hard lives of French miners in 19th century France is both political and epic, with neither element drowning out the other. Very strong performances abound. Miou-Miou is heartbreaking and, at times, frightening in her rage, as a mother and wife trying to help her family survive on the slave like wages paid buy the mine -- her anger growing ever harder to control as the mine literally consumers her family. Gerard Depardieu is also excellent as her husband, a big, likable fellow who is finally pushed too far by the bosses and working conditions. He joins with a more educated newcomer to the area, played by the also excellent Renaud, to help start a strike against their bosses, who plead poverty, and the inability to pay the workers more (indeed they want to cut wages), but who live in "Let them eat cake" splendor. While the film may be heavy handed at times in its cross cutting between the lives of rich and the poor, it escapes the trap of making "the poor" just a lovable, or pitiable mob .These are well drawn individuals, with light and dark sides, (some with more of one than the other) and the violence of the mob is shown as ugly and brutal, if also understandable. Berri is not above acknowledging that it sometimes takes violence to force change, but even if that change may be for the good on the large scale, the violence also always leads to tragedy in the realm of individual human beings. The film is beautifully shot and art directed, the grim hard life in the mines brought to startlingly real life, full of details and specifics that help, once again, the film transcend generalizations about being poor. These men and women take pride in their difficult, dirty and dangerous work, even as they have reached the end of their tether with their poverty.

Germinal is a film about the workers of a mining company in the North of France, during the seventies of the nineteenth century. it was the time of the First Socialist International, and the rise of the workers movement. The story is based on the book by Emile Zola, with the same title. Although Zola was not a socialist, he sketches a debunking image of the misery and poverty of the common people. I bought the DVD on a visit in Brussels, the bilingual capital of Belgium. Surprisingly the Frenchspeaking minority hardly masters the Dutch language, and this is reflected in the DVD, that lacks any subtitles (not even English ones). Being a Dutchman, my French is rather poor, so it would be unjustified for me to comment on the dialogs. However, the pictures and now and then an understandable passage are clear enough to convey the developments. The mining company operates still in the old tradition, with a true capitalist entrepreneur and owner. The mine is dangerous, and the economic crisis forces the wages to ever lower levels. The miners of both sexes are primitive folks, and we know from contemporary reports that the harsh conditions greatly contributed to their dissoluteness (which of course is less their fault than that of the then employers and system). Naturally they become rebellious, and start a strike fund. A roaming socialist agitator arrives, and becomes engaged in the mining company. When the wages are once again lowered, the miners go on strike. Their financial resistance is low (unions were scarce, and strikes were usually started impulsively), and soon hunger and distress break the workers solidarity. Some of them resume their work, which escalates the situation. The rage of the miners and the revolutionary agitation mix into an explosive atmosphere. The strikers assault the mine, make havoc, and lynch the local storekeeper (who is even castrated by the mob). Now the army is called in to occupy the mine, and protects the non-strikers. When the strikers start to throw stones at the soldiers, they fire into the crowd killing tens of people. For the moment the order is restored, and work is resumed. The ordeal continues, when a bore penetrates the galleries and causes explosions in the installations. Again lots of people are killed. The film follows one particular mining family, who is approximately decimated during the unfolding course of things. Finally the grandfather strangles a daughter of the mine-owner, who visits their house in order to bring relief. Indeed the contrast between the miners' misery and the capitalists' abundance could hardly be more profound. In spite of the at times shocking violence used by the miners, one has to sympathize with them. It was the period of forced capital accumulation, in which the wealthy people were obsessed by economic growth due to capital investments and in the process destroyed the level of consumption and well-being of the people. This film is a good reminder, even without understandable dialogs.

"Germinal" is a vivid, colorful, eloquent rendering of how the life of mine workers was in Europe in late 19th century. It is also a powerful illustration of how a strike could come about in that time, and how difficult - almost hopeless - it could seem for those dirt-poor people to try and improve their miserable life conditions. Of course, the contrast with the bourgeoisie is striking and thought-provoking. Depardieu (as Maheu) is, as usual, a giant figure, and most other actors are also very convincing. One question that remains when you saw it all is : can you really change a society's deep, unfair structure without violence?