My Father's Glory is about romanticism and memory; a blunt, low key comedy whereby one of the more residing moments of spoken humour arrives in the form of our narrator (and lead) talking about the pride and joy of his small, rural French town which is a somewhat large chunk of raised land: "It's not tall enough to be a mountain..." they explain, in a locale dominated by mountains; "...but it is no way (just) a hill". What's pleasing is that it doesn't fall into the traps that befall other comedies of a potentially romanticised nature; this is one of those easy films that wraps you up in its tale of childhood and nostalgia – before you know it, thirty minutes have gone by and you've been stuck in the same seated position, glued to the screen, without having given much thought to anything on account of how absorbing it's been.
The lead is Marcel, played as an infant by Julien Ciamaca; but it is the voice of Jean-Pierre Darras as narrator who's on hand to guide us through this chapter in his boyhood from the stage of old age. The film unfolds in the 1900's, following the tales of Marcel and his family of five; his father (Caubère), a teacher named Joseph at a local primary school: a respectable and respected man; book smart, who ends up being so good at his job that a better one lies away from the ruralised zone of nowhere-in-particular where the kids are only as tuned in as they are, and in the big city of Marseilles, where the kids are more "urban". For a film about times gone by and so heavily into looking back with a narrow eye; a furrowed brow and a nostalgic toned voice, it is amusing (if that's even the right word) to take note of what constituted as "urban" eighty years ago and what constituted as a bigger; wider, more intimidating city locale set away from your home pastures of the countryside. In the modern era, the likes of Erin Gruwell would be schooling the rough-and-ready future prison occupancies of this world in something like Freedom Writers.
What comes with moving away to bigger and better things is the being in such close proximity to new people and places; the film in actual fact a detailing of a holiday the family and some selected others experience out of term time, and NOT a fish-out-of-water story telling us about how this teacher applies his tried and tested methods on a group a little sharper and a tad less hospitable than before. No, we are based inside rented accommodation in the dusty, desert-like country side of Provence, where these summer days are warm and long and where both the allure and brilliancy of the country side can have one fall in love with it away from the busy day-to-day life of the city.
Apart from everything being a fantastic adventure for this boy anyway, the film resists the temptation to sugar-coat its content through measured depictions of people, places and activities that are new, perhaps even frightening, but are never merely tossed up on screen as bland comedic ingredients around which some childish things can unfold. There is room for flaw, even failure or fear of it, in this exciting place and it is pleasing to watch a film tackling this sort of material without bouncing along at an unnatural rate depicting everything as hip and fun and faultless. In terms of capturing childhood, indeed boyhood, away from the main drag at a holiday destination that sees you occupy a fixed, non-hotel imbued, locale for a set number of weeks, it's right on the button. Director Yves Robert does a great job in genuinely getting across that feeling that where one went; how one learnt; what one went through and what one thought of certain things and events has shaped elder Marcel. There are few live action comedies for kids and adults alike that depict kids and adults alike; this is a rare triumph of a film documenting children taking centre stage and keeping up with how it is they think and feel about where they are and what's transpiring. There cannot be many who aren't able to get something out of this film.
The lead is Marcel, played as an infant by Julien Ciamaca; but it is the voice of Jean-Pierre Darras as narrator who's on hand to guide us through this chapter in his boyhood from the stage of old age. The film unfolds in the 1900's, following the tales of Marcel and his family of five; his father (Caubère), a teacher named Joseph at a local primary school: a respectable and respected man; book smart, who ends up being so good at his job that a better one lies away from the ruralised zone of nowhere-in-particular where the kids are only as tuned in as they are, and in the big city of Marseilles, where the kids are more "urban". For a film about times gone by and so heavily into looking back with a narrow eye; a furrowed brow and a nostalgic toned voice, it is amusing (if that's even the right word) to take note of what constituted as "urban" eighty years ago and what constituted as a bigger; wider, more intimidating city locale set away from your home pastures of the countryside. In the modern era, the likes of Erin Gruwell would be schooling the rough-and-ready future prison occupancies of this world in something like Freedom Writers.
What comes with moving away to bigger and better things is the being in such close proximity to new people and places; the film in actual fact a detailing of a holiday the family and some selected others experience out of term time, and NOT a fish-out-of-water story telling us about how this teacher applies his tried and tested methods on a group a little sharper and a tad less hospitable than before. No, we are based inside rented accommodation in the dusty, desert-like country side of Provence, where these summer days are warm and long and where both the allure and brilliancy of the country side can have one fall in love with it away from the busy day-to-day life of the city.
Apart from everything being a fantastic adventure for this boy anyway, the film resists the temptation to sugar-coat its content through measured depictions of people, places and activities that are new, perhaps even frightening, but are never merely tossed up on screen as bland comedic ingredients around which some childish things can unfold. There is room for flaw, even failure or fear of it, in this exciting place and it is pleasing to watch a film tackling this sort of material without bouncing along at an unnatural rate depicting everything as hip and fun and faultless. In terms of capturing childhood, indeed boyhood, away from the main drag at a holiday destination that sees you occupy a fixed, non-hotel imbued, locale for a set number of weeks, it's right on the button. Director Yves Robert does a great job in genuinely getting across that feeling that where one went; how one learnt; what one went through and what one thought of certain things and events has shaped elder Marcel. There are few live action comedies for kids and adults alike that depict kids and adults alike; this is a rare triumph of a film documenting children taking centre stage and keeping up with how it is they think and feel about where they are and what's transpiring. There cannot be many who aren't able to get something out of this film.