Till 2017, only a truncated version of the film (77 min) was available ; thus the story which spanned over 70 years (1871-1939) was hardly intelligible ; now restored at a running time of 106 min, probably the director's cut, this work has become more enjoyable, more endearing and needs reassessment.
It's close to the movie made up of sketches , a genre Duvivier lent credibility to (« un carnet de bal » ,1937 ; but the restored film shows more continuity , even though it cannot be looked upon as a seamless whole .Depicting the story of a family through the years is not an easy task and even for Duvivier it may seem a bit too much ; but in a way ,it predates Claude Lelouch 's interminable sagas ,the likes of « toute une vie » and « les uns et les autres « in the seventies and eighties .
Intended as a propaganda film , the mayor 's (Fernand Ledoux ) words echo to the priest's at the end of William Wyler's « Mrs Miniver « (1942) ; trying to tell at once a family chronicle and a summary of 70 years of French history, Duvivier was blamed because he forgot vital moments such as the Dreyfus affair and the 1936 Front Populaire : yet,for the latter , the director's « la belle équipe « (1936) caught this period zeitgeist as no other film did .And a short sequence shows Hitler writing « Mein kampf » circa 1924 ....
Duvivier's legendary pessimism is not abiding but occasionally surfaces :people rejoice as WW1 finally comes to an end , but simultaneously the schoolteacher and his wife learn that their son was killed in action ; ominous coincidence ,the captain who waves the pilot away as he takes off is played by Robert le Vigan, an excellent actor but a future collaborator in the occupation days,unwittingly ironical .The students celebrate their degrees but they turn the radio on, just to hear Hitler's threatening voice .
The son who has made great achievements in Africa (Louis Jouvet) has turned into a tired,embittered man, who does not care about honors anymore .
It's a sprawling movie, but now and then , Duvivier's touch can be felt;Raimu and Suzy Prim are the stand-outs .The former is first a womanizer ,who takes his self-righteous nephews to a belle epoque cabaret where they share a table with a girl of easy virtue ; it is a very funny moment ,to rival the best of Guitry .The old beau , ruined because he bought the Soviet loans , becomes a concierge ,then runs a hotel where he welcomes the immigrants ,which make some people moan and groan , a subject still relevant today. Prim portrays an old maid, who sacrificed her youth for the sake of her siblings , becomes a devoted nurse, working night and day during WW1 and is awarded the Légion D' Honneur , the director's feminist side.
Even though it does not make it as a whole, every Duvivier 's buff must see the restored version, a vast improvement on the digest one.