My Father's Glory

Released 1990
Stars Philippe Caubere, Nathalie Roussel, Didier Pain, Therese Liotard, Julien Ciamaca
Directed by Yves Robert

"My Father's Glory" is the first in a series of two films that creep up on you with small moments of warmth and charm. At first this film and its companion, "My Mother's Castle," don't seem to be about much of anything. They meander. To a viewer accustomed to the machinery of plots, they play like a simple series of episodes. Then the episodes add up to a childhood. And by the end of the second film, the entire foundation for a life has been re-created, in memories of the perfect days of childhood. Of course the films are sentimental. Who would want it any other way? "My Father's Glory" is based on the childhood of Marcel Pagnol, the French novelist and filmmaker whose twinned novels, Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring, were turned into wonderful films a few years ago.

The movie is narrated by the hero, Marcel, as an adult. We see him as a young man of 10 or 12. His father, Joseph, is a schoolteacher in the city, and his mother, Augustine, is a paragon of domestic virtue. One summer they journey out to the hills of Provence to take a cottage and spend their vacation. These hills are to become the focus of Marcel's most enduring love affair. He loves the trees and the grasses, the small birds and the eagle that nests high in a crag, the pathways up rock faces and the way that voices carry from one side of a valley to another.

Summary by Roger Ebert

I love coming-of-age films. In fact, I think it's my favorite genre, so I was excited to see this film. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. It's very pleasant, but there's no point. Imagine making a movie about your childhood from your adult perspective, and that's what this is. It plays like a sentimental home movie, and I'm not sure who wants to watch strangers' home movies. I enjoyed a similar film, Butterfly, a few weeks ago, but it made a statement about man's nature. "My Father's Glory" doesn't do anything like that. It's essentially a love poem from a son to his parents. I would love it if one of my kids did that for me someday, but I'm not sure who would want to watch it. --Bill Alward, June 8, 2002