Après l'orage (1943)

"Apres L'Orage" begins quite well,something left over from some forgotten Marcel Pagnol 's movie.René Dary ,one of the two children/actors in Feuillade 's times ,is hardly believable as an agricultural engineer but the rest of the cast ,including Provençal Chaplin ,are up to scratch.

Things degenerate after the first twenty minutes ,when the hero,after seeing his village modernization plans denied by the community (and his dad!),lives the sweet country comfort for the broader horizons outside it (that is to say the evil heathen town):he meets a movie star (Suzy Prim)he falls in love with ,her unscrupulous manager (Jules Berry) and the artificial world of urban life ,where people die on the streets and where everything seems phony from the marble floor to the politeness of the employees .The words of love his new celebrated lover tells him are the same the actress tells her co-star on the screen . This second part (which is actually the core of the plot) tries to demonstrate,should we ignore it,that the hero (Dary's stupefied face does not help) should never have left home.