06 September 2018
Guarding the Gardiennes
A film by Xavier Beauvois.
Reviewed by J R Thomas
Sometimes it seems a pity that English does not follow Latin derived languages in having gender sensitive nouns. Of course in an age when we have all genders and none, we are never going to get our words defined as male or female (or indeed, transgender). But having a feminine of “Guardians” would have clarified what this wonderful movie is about. In French it is “Les Gardiennes”. Ah-ha. Indeed. Not a Disney cartoon or a Russian made outer space thriller. But a gentle, almost dreamlike, discourse about the women of a French farming family during the First World War.
The men have all gone to fight, as men do, and only the disabled, the old, and children are left. And the women. They became the “Gardiennes”, those responsible for making sure agriculture enabled the population to be fed, clothed, and cared for. For four years, farming was run by a largely female workforce, as their menfolk on the Western Front were killed or, if lucky, mutilated. After the war things were never quite what they had been; women had seen the future and made it work. Xavier Beauvois here takes Ernest Pérochon’s 1924 book and transforms it into a true thing of beauty; a homage to women and to a way of life long gone in Western Europe. Those who saw “Of Gods and Men” directed by Beauvois, the immensely moving story of French monks murdered by Algerian terrorists in the 1950’s, will be expecting a momentously photographed and delicately told tale of humanity at its best and worst. They will get that and more.
Gardienne Hortense (Natalie Baye) and her (real life) daughter Solange (Laura Smet) are struggling to run the family farm. Hortense takes on an orphan teenager Francine (Iris Bry) to help out. Together the women pull things round; the harvest is got in, and the men on occasional furloughs are fussed over and their suggestions as to how to farm ignored. One could contentedly settle down and just watch the seasons pass over the French countryside, bathed in golden sunshine and touched with snow, the population at work scything corn, grieving in church, and grumbling over the dining table. Not a lot seems to happen but life is so lovingly observed that nothing much else is needed. In particular, Ms Bry, an unknown when this film was made, but surely destined to be one of France’s truly great actresses, could make a masterpiece movie just by letting a camera linger on the delicate but telling movements of her face.
Not a lot happens; actually, slowly, almost imperceptibly, a lot does happen. Life starts to get in the way of poor but comfortable rural bliss. No plot spoilers here, but the skill of Beauvois is to let humans behave just as humans do. Alas. But also hurrah.
This will be one of the best films of 2018; go see it on the big screen, which gives it the necessary scope and grandeur it deserves.
“The Guardians” is 134 minutes, French dialogue with subtitles. As with so often with Shaw Sheet film reviews it will soon be off circuit release but is showing this week at Curzon Bloomsbury and at other independent cinemas.
