GERMINAL (2021)

Oft cited as Émile Zola’s masterpiece (does it truly top NANA,  L'OEUVRE, AU BONHEUR DES DAMES,  LA BÊTE HUMAINE or . . . or . . . or . . . ?); less debatable is that GERMNAL*, his magnificent & punishing novel on a coal town in a crisis of capitalism, communism, class & corruption, is the most purely cinematic of his works.  Even with cascading plot lines & characters spread out over his semi-fictional mining town, you easily follow its coal family laborers; managers & owners; non-local agitators & union campaigns, company town practices & bar life; love affairs & sabotaging anarchists.  A giant wheel-of-fortune narrative organized by Zola to hold together like a dramatic ‘jenga’ puzzle for him to pull out single pieces for examination while keeping structural integrity as he balances empathy with nihilistic horror.  No wonder this breathtaking achievement has proved tough to master on film with various failed mini-series and three main mega-film attempts.  From 1913, an inert 2.5 hour serial by Albert Capellani.  (His 3' LES MISERABLES from the same year far better, still quite watchable.)  A forgotten 1963 ‘cinema-of-quality’ version (not seen here) by Yves Allégret with a Charles Spaak screenplay, natch.  And a much ballyhooed All-Star dud; sane & solid under Claude Berri, tastefully purring along like late David Lean manqué; leaving no mark other than the thought that lead Gérard Depardieu is eating all the food in the house while his family starves.  So, it’s a pleasure, to note how much this recent six-part version for French tv gets right covering most of the story.  (Though how they missed showing the vengeful towns-ladies parading around town with the company store manager’s genitals stuck on a pike after they riot over food & past acts of sexual blackmail during the strike, is beyond me.)  The lead activist (an outsider who changes the worker dynamic of the entire community) isn’t as tough & charismatic as he needs to be, but most of the casting is spot on.  And the owner/managers have plenty of complexity, too, even sympathy.   Moving the time period up three or four decades seems pointless, but all in all, as far as it goes, a fine adaptation.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: To get an idea of what’s missing here, Mario Monicelli/Marcello Mastroianni’s superb THE ORGANIZER/’63.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/06/i-compagni-organizer-1963.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *In France, ‘Germinal’ was the seventh month in the revolutionary calendar, the Spring month of ‘germination’ when the seeds you planted started to bud.