Home :: DVD :: Art House & International  

Asian Cinema
British Cinema
European Cinema
General
Latin American Cinema
My Mother's Castle

My Mother's Castle

List Price: $14.95
Your Price: $13.46
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 >>

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A MOVING EXPERIENCE
Review: "My Mother's Castle" is a follow-up of the equally brilliant film "My Father's Glory" taken from the books of Marcel Pagnol. This film is like a beautiful painting, true to life and brilliantly acted. It is a film that will leave you in a nostalgic and dreamy mood. It will move you, make you cry both with sadness and joy. A beautiful protrayal of youth, friendship, love and of course Provence. You will all want to go to France on holiday after seeing this film. A MUST see film. Enjoy it everyone!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A MOVING EXPERIENCE
Review: "My Mother's Castle" is a follow-up of the equally brilliant film "My Father's Glory" taken from the books of Marcel Pagnol. This film is like a beautiful painting, true to life and brilliantly acted. It is a film that will leave you in a nostalgic and dreamy mood. It will move you, make you cry both with sadness and joy. A beautiful protrayal of youth, friendship, love and of course Provence. You will all want to go to France on holiday after seeing this film. A MUST see film. Enjoy it everyone!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: more pagnol-based excellence
Review: A joyous and entertaining continuation of the story begun in "My Father's Glory." Although the focus is on the beautiful mother, the characterization of the father is just as loving and heartfelt as in the previous film. So good is this film that, even though the family relations are at the core of it and are depicted skillfully, we also learn something about broader French society at the time. And it is all so unforced and subtle. The two films together are a funny and uplifting human experience.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: more pagnol-based excellence
Review: A joyous and entertaining continuation of the story begun in "My Father's Glory." Although the focus is on the beautiful mother, the characterization of the father is just as loving and heartfelt as in the previous film. So good is this film that, even though the family relations are at the core of it and are depicted skillfully, we also learn something about broader French society at the time. And it is all so unforced and subtle. The two films together are a funny and uplifting human experience.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Beautiful film with a touching final scene
Review: A wonderful lyrical film of childhood and memory. The final scene is a touching finale to Pagnol's paen to his young mother. See both films in sequence if possible, but "My Mother's Castle" is capable of standing alone.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Beautiful film with a touching final scene
Review: A wonderful lyrical film of childhood and memory. The final scene is a touching finale to Pagnol's paen to his young mother. See both films in sequence if possible, but "My Mother's Castle" is capable of standing alone.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Worthy Follow Up to My Father's Glory
Review: My Mother Castle picks up where My Father's Glory Ends. Like its predecessor, it is a movie that really does not have a plot, but it has well developed characters, a beautiful setting, and wonderful music. In this film, the family visits a beloved vacation home in the South of France as often as possible. The mother Augustine is more the focus of this film, but Marcel's father also plays a significant role. We get a sense of how powerful his father's teaching impacted students when we meet one of his former students who is now an adult. In this film we see Marcel grow up a bit more. He still has a great friend in the country boy Lilli, a friendship which began in the first film. He also has his first crush on a rather eccentric girl. Perhaps the greatest moment in the film is when the family learns that Marcel will be able to attend a prestigious exam school. Marcel realizes that this will give him greater educational opportunities than his father ever had, but he also realizes that he may never be the wonderful person that his father happened to be.

I viewed this film prior to viewing My Father's Glory. This is not to say that My Mother's Castle is not a good enough film to stand on its own. The two films are nearly equal in all aspects. The high standards of the first film were applied to the second film, but since this film takes place after My Father's Glory, it will be less confusing to viewers if they have already met the characters in the first film.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Way to View Life
Review: The French definitely have a way of putting life on film. I am no expert on film or French movies, but the few movies that I have seen that are made in France have a unique quality. I cannot recall seeing any American movie as having that manner of getting the viewer to renew his senses to all that is precious in life the way that the French do in a lot of their films. There is something very valuable that the American movie makers could learn from the French movie makers. "My Mother's Castle" is one movie that they should study and learn from. I highly recommend this movie for those who are tired of the Hollywood factory films.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Narrative Account of a Boy's Desire...
Review: The young boy Marcel spends every holiday with his family in their cottage in the hills of Provence. However, every time they leave Marcel wishes to go back to the hills and he is always daydreaming of the hills. As he daydreams he is picked to take the scholarship application test offered once a year by his school and this conflicts with his desires. The teachers in his school, including his father, keep their eyes on Marcel and quiz him constantly. However, due to the deteriorating health of his mother, his family must return to the hills frequently. This means that they will have to walk six miles every time they want to go to their cottage. One day on their way to the cottage, they meet an old student of Marcel's father. The ex-student offers to take them on a shortcut and later offers them a key that takes them through the shortcut, but this is somewhat illegal and it is against his fathers principles. After some consideration the father accepts and the dream of coming to the hills more often seems to be more solid. My Mother's Castle is a narrative account where the audience gets to know Marcel and his family through their actions and their dreams. As the audience follows the story, they are presented with numerous short stories in the family's life that are cleverly intertwined leaving the audience with a terrific cinematic experience.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Narrative Account of a Boy's Desire...
Review: The young boy Marcel spends every holiday with his family in their cottage in the hills of Provence. However, every time they leave Marcel wishes to go back to the hills and he is always daydreaming of the hills. As he daydreams he is picked to take the scholarship application test offered once a year by his school and this conflicts with his desires. The teachers in his school, including his father, keep their eyes on Marcel and quiz him constantly. However, due to the deteriorating health of his mother, his family must return to the hills frequently. This means that they will have to walk six miles every time they want to go to their cottage. One day on their way to the cottage, they meet an old student of Marcel's father. The ex-student offers to take them on a shortcut and later offers them a key that takes them through the shortcut, but this is somewhat illegal and it is against his fathers principles. After some consideration the father accepts and the dream of coming to the hills more often seems to be more solid. My Mother's Castle is a narrative account where the audience gets to know Marcel and his family through their actions and their dreams. As the audience follows the story, they are presented with numerous short stories in the family's life that are cleverly intertwined leaving the audience with a terrific cinematic experience.


<< 1 2 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates