Word: manon
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...Manon Rheaume has quietly broken one barrier after another, by becoming the first woman player in Canada's Major Junior Hockey League, and leading the national women's team to a 1992 world title. So when she played goalie for the Tampa Bay Lightning last week, to become the first woman player in the N.H.L., she believed a final barrier had been crossed. But not quite. "Did you break a nail?" asked a straight-faced sportswriter...
...course, the same bliss that director Claude Berri offered us in Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring, his adaptations of Marcel Pagnol's fictions. And indeed, Uranus (it takes its title from the dark, cold planet) resembles those limpid works in its setting, tone and sympathetic anatomy of a provincial society...
Best known in the U.S. for his 1930s films Topaze, Fanny and The Baker's Wife, and for a recent two-part movie hit (Jean de Florette and Manon of the Springs) based on his novels, Pagnol is a figure unique in 20th century French culture. He might be described as the Provencal Mark Twain, if that beloved "regional" writer had also made movies championed by critics and the public. He could be a French Frank Capra, if that populist filmmaker had also been his country's most popular playwright. Pagnol introduced French theatergoers to the accent...
...Berri's cinematography sets out to record the archetypical Provencal village. Barri shoots glassy stares at the Midi countryside as easily as close-ups of Ugolin's unshaven cheek or Papet at the table. Unfortunately, Manon appears to be just another landscape. Beart is an extraordinary beauty. She has long blond hair and baby-blue eyes and a face that could launch a thousand ships. But she has almost no lines in the entire two hours of the film...
...Manon of the Spring is like a child's fairy tale. It's simple and hearty, and though its enduring sadness prevents it from warming the cockles of its audience's heart, it is certain to leave even the sternest critic with a feeling of satisfaction...