The Girl From Paris (2000)

Average rating

(68%)

Starring:	Michel Serrault \| Mathilde Seigner \| Marc Berman \| Francoise Bette
Director:	Christian Carion
Studio:	ARTIFICIAL EYE
Run time:	103 mins
Genres:	Drama \| World Cinema
Languages:	French
Subtitles:	English
Released:	January 27, 2003
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The deeply expressive, down-to-earth Mathilde Seigner stars in this beautiful, scenic film as Sandrine, a 30-year-old woman who has decided to give up her career as a computer engineer in Paris to be an agriculturist. She returns to school, which is half textbook work and half hands-on farming experience (viewers may want to cover their eyes for Sandrine's lesson in slaughtering a hog). Soon after, she buys a farm in the Rhone-Alps region of France, a rugged mountainous area where the springtime views and clear air are the payoff for the intense isolated winters. There's only one hitch in Sandrine's plan: the cold and curmudgeonly former owner, Adrien (Michel Serrault), will live on the property for an additional 18 months before leaving the farm to retire. As Sandrine learns to run her new farm, coming up with business innovations of which Adrien could never have dreamed, he looks on in silent admiration but keeps his door shut to her. Finally, the two learn to communicate, teaching each other some valuable lessons. This understated film, which makes the French Alps look like paradise, shows two very lonely sides of life: Sandrine's as a young single woman who has not yet found a companion, and Adrien's as a man in his last years of life whose wife has already passed on.
This film was included in the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2002 festival organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City.

Rating of 3 stars out of 5

A cross-gender/generational slant on the town-and-country mouse scenario, Christian Carion's debut feature not only benefits from the striking Rhône-Alp scenery, but also the slow-burning chemistry between testy widower Michel Serrault and Mathilde Seigner, the disillusioned Parisienne who buys his rundown farm and transforms it into a thriving business. The insights into the agricultural year have undeniable charm, but there's also much to provoke in Carion's astute consideration of the need to temper tradition with change and the importance of human contact in a world increasingly dominated by impersonal means of communication. Pitched between gritty realism and pastoral idyll, this is a most satisfying experience.

Rating of 1 stars out of 5
Halliwell's Film Guide

Slow-moving drama of agricultural life, dependent for interest on its odd-couple pairing of stubborn young city woman and a crusty old farmer who doesn't hold with new-fangled ways.

Highest rated reviews

9 out of 9 people found the following review helpful:

Rated 5 stars
This is one to watch

RustyT from Dorset, 23rd February, 2004

This film has the most beautiful opening I can remember, blending a lovely tune to beautiful camera work in the Rhone-Alpes countryside.

Sandrine (Mathilde Seigner) has long held the ambition to be a farmer, and after agricultural college she secures a farm in which the previous owner, old Adrien Rochas (Michel Serrault) comes as part of the package, at least for the first year.

He is living there, separate from her. He watches her and comments harshly to his friends, that she's not up to the job. The camera knows different: there is more to him than meets the eye. There is a complex relationship between them which slowly develops. A simple plot lends itself to a beautiful film in which the landscape of the Vercors plateau is a significant player.

Sandrine is a tough cookie, and we see her tackle all manner of problems with her livestock: she appears to have the wherewithal to survive.

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5 out of 5 people found the following review helpful:

Rated 5 stars
A powerful film

shadow0 from Gwent, 5th October, 2005

This is a very moving and realistic film about a young Parisian woman who decides to be a farmer in the Vercors region of France. The film follows her trials and tribulations and the friendship she strikes up with the former owner whom she allows to continue living on the farm. The harsh realities of farm life and the sacrifice involved by the farmers and the animals to feed the population are something everyone should be aware of. This is not an idealised view of rural life but a real picture of the world we live in. This film succeeds in both entertaining and educating and attracted a big audience in France when it was realeased.

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Most recent reviews

Rated 1 stars
Warning: Horrific Animal Killings

A Customer from Weymouth, 16th December, 2008

Not for young chlidren or sensitive adults! How the censors missed this I just cannot think. The bloody slaughter of the squeeling, terrified pig comes very close to the start but worse is to come with the cattle massacre on screen as they tremble in their death throes. Nice. Perhaps it was intended to turn us all vegetarian because there doesn't appear to be much other reason for the film. The plot is almost non-existent. A cold-hearted young woman from Paris, who cares nothing for the man who loves her or her mother, decides to become a farmer and takes on a farm, single-handed except for the previous owner who won't leave. Well, that's about it. The scenery is nice but not that good. The film making isn't bad quality but the on-screen slaughters and real still births of goat kids was unnecessarily brutal.

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Rated 4 stars
Refreshing

Yarrow from from Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England, 17th September, 2008

I loved this film. Yes, some of the scenes of animals being slaughtered were very real but this is what happens when we continue to eat them. The photography was beautiful. The story was about country life and the effects it has on different people. I loved the bond which grew between the old man from the farm and the girl from the city. It was an old fashioned story but one that held my imagination all the way through. If you are oblivious to Nature and the subtle effects human beings can have upon each other then you may find this film lacking in content and rather slow. Or, if you are lucky, you will remember it with joy.

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