Le sabotier du Val de Loire (1956) User Reviews

Last Of The Line

[writers_reign · 8/10 · 24 November 2007]

This is a wonderfully observed portrait of a craftsman at work albeit practicing a dying art and an equally charming portrait of a lost world and alien lifestyle. Jacques Demy shoots the old clog-maker (sabot translates as clog/wooden shoe) in loving and respectful tones as he goes through the whole A - Z of creating clogs, starting with the raw lumber in the shape of logs which are cut to size and then shaped as a sculptor shapes a block of marble. Everything is done by hand utilising an array of tools that would probably make a fortune at a collector's fair and in between the long days in the workshop we also get an idea of life in a small hamlet half a century ago. An exquisite short film.

I Misread The Title Too

[boblipton · 7/10 · 24 April 2020]

No, it isn't the saboteur, a guy who wrecks machinery. It's the old man who makes sabots, wooden shoes, using poplar wood and rough tools: adzes and large chisels, and maybe some sandpaper at the end to smooth off the lines. He's been doing it for decades, and hanging the pairs on a line to dry, while his wife "does what women do." Clean. Trundle the laundry down to the Loire in the worn-out wheelbarrow. He will buy her a new one, but a wheelbarrow costs many sabots.

Jacques Demy's short documentary is a study in rhythms. A man dies, as he has been expected to do for several weeks. Their adopted son doesn't come home with him after church, but that day was coming. Things change, but slowly, as the rows of wooden shoes on the line above his head lengthen. Quite lovely.

Nice

[Anders-3 · 1 September 2001]

Jacques Demy knew this clogmaker well, since he had stayed at him during world war two. Jacques Demy often watched him making his clogs, and even learned to make dem.

The movie is about the life and times of an old clogmaker. We follow him during the production of clogs, on a funeral for an old friend and other ordinary things.

A very nice little film about a way of life that is now utterly lost.

A week in the life of a clog maker.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 29 October 2015]

This is one of director Jacques Demy's earliest films. It looks a lot better than his first film (that wouldn't be hard) and shows he's learned since then. Interestingly, this is a documentary--a genre to which Demy isn't usually associated. But, it's also not quite a documentary as the narrator often doesn't describe what the shoe maker and others are doing but what they're thinking about about and their hopes and fears. At other times, the film shows the step-by-step process for making the shoes...much like a documentary! In many ways, it seemed like combining existentialism with a documentary!

So is it any good? Well, the cinematography was decent and the story was at times engaging. However, my feeling is that if folks didn't know it was a Demy film (the man who made the wonderful "Umbrellas of Cherbourg"), they wouldn't care about it at all. Mostly a film for Demy-philes.

The tree of wooden clogs

[dbdumonteil · 12 October 2008]

For "Jacquot de Nantes",the "Val de Loire" is part of his childhood.Like Marcel Carné and Georges Franju,he began his career with shorts.It was 1961 before he directed his first full length feature ("Lola") An user wrote that he was a true story and the way Demy depicts the craftsman's work leaves no doubt about it.From the tree to the clog,which little by little takes shape .But I'm not sure it's the main subject of the film:for the movie is not representative of Demy's future works.Even when his work turned pessimistic (" model shop" " pied piper" or "parking" ) ,he never made a movie as lugubrious as this one.The real subject of this short is getting old and the thought of an impending death ("my wife is as old as my wheelbarrow" "another of my old mates is gone" ).It's the dimming of the day and the old couple desperately needs each other and their biggest fear is to be the one who survives ("If she goes first,she won't have to wait for me too long").They have a child (an orphan they adopted),but now he's grown up,and begins to leave them alone for he has a life on his own ("he gets restless" says the father).

The Val de Loire ,which is also my native region ,is shrouded in a crepuscular light:shadows lengthen over the film as it progresses ;the slow ending of two lives which were certainly not the one you dream of.

As the old people are fishing ,a train is tearing along :in their old world the milk train does not stop anymore,just the hoot of a small van early very early in the autumnal dawn.