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Apr 25, 2008
"Regain" : pull my cart. (2/5)
« Regain » is a powerful film : harsh, cruel, lyrical, often beautiful, at times saved from ridicule by its age and the respect owed the filmmaker and the original writer.
Gédémus is an ambulant knife grinder, who mourns the death of his dog, because it helped him pull his cart.
Gédémus rescues Arsule, a young woman, who has just been victim, it seems, of no less than a collective rape : the incident is discussed with surrealist detachment, between Gédémus and a « garde champêtre », a local policeman, who refuses to get involved, as a most natural occurrence.
Gédémus is no selfless knight. He is quick to turn his good deed into a good deal : he had a dog, he now has a bitch. Arsule pulls his cart, except when they come to a village : Gédémus has a sense of decency. At night, Arsule sleeps with her saviour : it is also part of the deal.
Meanwhile, Panturle is an uncouth but good-hearted giant who lives in a ruined village at the top of the hills.
An old half-crazy woman, and the village only other inhabitant, sacrifices herself to send Arsule into Panturle’s path.
Arsule seizes the opportunity to escape and flees with Panturle, while Gédémus is asleep.
Their shared love will transform Arsule and Panturle, and the village : the three will be reborn, « le regain » will start.
« Regain » is one of the first three books Giono wrote. With « Colline » and « Un de Baumugnes », it belongs to the so-called « Pan trilogy ». To the writer, Pan was Nature made God : stormy Yahvé rather than the benign motherly earth of New Age believers.
In the few years before « Regain », Fernandel had become popular by playing dumb characters. Gédémus is not dumb, he is neither candid, nor particularly likeable ; he is a realist, if not a cynic, who behaves harshly to survive in a harsh world.
He knows injustice, because he suffers it regularly, particularly from local « gendarmes », and therefore finds it natural to inflict it upon Arsule, because such is the right of the more powerful.
He is aware he acts unfairly, but does so without any moral hesitation, because selfishness is the name of the game, and he did not write the rules.
When he acknowledges he has lost Arsule for good, he shall negotiate damages with Panturle and get himself enough money to buy a donkey : he had a dog, then a woman, now a donkey, to pull his cart, if not sleep with him.
Not such a bad deal, but Fernandel’s talent suggests that his character is somehow aware that, with Arsule, he missed something more and a hint of melancholy taints his cynicism to make him more human.
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