La Brière (1925) User Reviews

countryside melodrama

[daniel1-smague · 20 April 2006]

I saw this silent movie at "la Cinemathèque Française" in Paris in 2006. Filmed entirely on locations near Nantes,and shortly after World War I, mixing actors with real peasants, , it shows how the landscape was and how people lived during this era (the twenties) ,before this way of life disappeared with the urbanism and the industrial world. Moreover a traditional theme in the story (from Chateaubriand's novel) :a stubborn father does not accept his daughter marry a man from another village because of old conflicts,there is a second plot which remains modern.The village and swamps surrounding must be offered by state decision to various industrial projects. But the swamps of Brière belong to the inhabitants ,since Duchess Anne of Bretagne ,during 15 th century,had decided it and established by letters the estate.Unfortunately these precious letters are lost and ,the stubborn father,Aoustin, is given by the village, the responsibility of finding the letters again.