Reviews

How often may we have said that our own "dull" lives could never be made into a movie? Well, this beautiful film shows that the ordinary lives of an immigrant and his family ARE worth watching. Barry Levinson has helped me see the extraordinary in the ordinary. He has made me look at my own extended family with new eyes. All good films (and theatre and novels, etc.) help us experience and accept the humanness in all of us. Levinson certainly has that special magic touch in AVALON. He has simply, softly, and brilliantly connected us to the human family and its collective hopes and dreams, foibles, stumbles and successes. Bravo! Encore!

It has been 5 or 6 years since I saw this film and its sequel "Manon of the Spring." I came across it late at night on television and was riveted by what I saw at the time. I couldn't leave it and go to bed, and so stayed up into the wee hours watching it and the sequel which immediately followed.

We talk about good theatre and film letting us glimpse ourselves as human beings. Well, these two movies did an outstanding job at that. The acting was superb and I hardly noticed the subtitles. "Jean de Florette" was a beautiful and moving insight into human nature. It really makes us stop and think about the power we have, in many ways, to alter the suffering of others -- lessening or increasing it.

I hadn't seen this movie and its sequel since then. But coming across the information about it here at IMDb, I've decided to rent them soon!