Emile Zola's novel "Germinal" is an epic masterpiece. So is Claude Berri's film of it. This film brings out the intensity of Zola's novel, its terror and the shocking divisions in French society during the Second Empire (1852-70). It centres on a community of miners whose bosses effectively pay starvation wages, reduce pay by altering working conditions unfavourably and fine miners for faulty work (whether their fault or not). Conversely, the mine owners expect the miners' families - including children who go down the pit - to save money while themselves living and feasting in luxury.
The miners receive some little acts of kindness from one or two of the younger bourgeois women, but it seems their only real amusements are drinking and watching cock-fighting.
Such a society looks ripe for uprisings by the working class, if not a revolution, though both the novel and the film reflect tensions between revolutionary aims and reformism. The Russian anarchist Souvarine (Laurent Terzieff, of Russian descent) has a crucial role in this context.
The film very probably has a real cast of thousands. It is said to have been the most expensive French film of its time. Tramping en masse across the northern French countryside, the miners are a terrifying sight.
The scenes featuring miners are mostly very dark, a sharp contrast with the colour and elegance of the pit bosses' homes. They live in hovels where whole families have to share a dirty bath, and we can really feel the terrible dangers of their daily work.
As in the novel, the central characters are Toussaint Maheu (Gérard Depardieu) and his family. He displays great dignity and a generous spirit, while his wife "La Maheude" (Miou-Miou), not called Madame Maheu, has a quiet intensity and burning sense of injustice on her family's behalf. Etienne Lantier (Renaud), one of Zola's "outsider" figures, seems to be less of a catalyst for radical change than in the novel. He's more reactive, but has a thoughtful, brooding presence.
This film is inevitably more schematic than the novel. It can't, for instance, reproduce a poetic passage evoking the plight of horses down the pit (though the horses in the film look pretty sad). More than one disaster occurs in the story, and I think the transitions back to normal life look too quick. There are touches of caricature, especially in the villainous Chaval (Jean-Roger Milo) who seems a bit "stagey". In contrast, the mean-spirited local shopkeeper Maigrat (Gérard Croce) is convincingly odious; he suffers a horrible fate, though it is shown more explicitly in the novel.
Overall, this film by Claude Berri and his sister and co-writer Arlette Langmann fully deserves to stand alongside Emile Zola's great novel.
The miners receive some little acts of kindness from one or two of the younger bourgeois women, but it seems their only real amusements are drinking and watching cock-fighting.
Such a society looks ripe for uprisings by the working class, if not a revolution, though both the novel and the film reflect tensions between revolutionary aims and reformism. The Russian anarchist Souvarine (Laurent Terzieff, of Russian descent) has a crucial role in this context.
The film very probably has a real cast of thousands. It is said to have been the most expensive French film of its time. Tramping en masse across the northern French countryside, the miners are a terrifying sight.
The scenes featuring miners are mostly very dark, a sharp contrast with the colour and elegance of the pit bosses' homes. They live in hovels where whole families have to share a dirty bath, and we can really feel the terrible dangers of their daily work.
As in the novel, the central characters are Toussaint Maheu (Gérard Depardieu) and his family. He displays great dignity and a generous spirit, while his wife "La Maheude" (Miou-Miou), not called Madame Maheu, has a quiet intensity and burning sense of injustice on her family's behalf. Etienne Lantier (Renaud), one of Zola's "outsider" figures, seems to be less of a catalyst for radical change than in the novel. He's more reactive, but has a thoughtful, brooding presence.
This film is inevitably more schematic than the novel. It can't, for instance, reproduce a poetic passage evoking the plight of horses down the pit (though the horses in the film look pretty sad). More than one disaster occurs in the story, and I think the transitions back to normal life look too quick. There are touches of caricature, especially in the villainous Chaval (Jean-Roger Milo) who seems a bit "stagey". In contrast, the mean-spirited local shopkeeper Maigrat (Gérard Croce) is convincingly odious; he suffers a horrible fate, though it is shown more explicitly in the novel.
Overall, this film by Claude Berri and his sister and co-writer Arlette Langmann fully deserves to stand alongside Emile Zola's great novel.