Based on a story called "Romeo and Juliet in the village ","Espoirs" is a notch or two above Willy Rozier's production.It's melodrama ,but unlike extravaganzas such as "Le Bagnard" and "56 Rue Pigalle",with sentimentality and implausibilities kept to economical levels.
Grigou (=skinflint)owns a patch of land between farmers Martin's and Aubert's fields .Both covet this plot.As Grigou has lost the title deed,the mayor of the village decides to sell it.After an interminable auction sale , Aubert carries the day .To add insult to injury,shortly after,Martin is expelled from his farm (a mortgage was hanging over his head) and becomes an innkeeper , the former owner was found hanged on a beam.Ten years after, Aubert's daughter falls in love with Martin's son.Their fathers being deadly enemies, their marriage seems impossible.
The first part (the best) depicts the peasants ' fight for a plot of land.Although they are still young ,their children know better than they do.Grigou ,who plays the fiddle all along the story ,proves wiser-even though he almost involuntary causes the lovers' death- than the farmers whose greed leads them to sacrifice their children's happiness.He's the pied piper and he plays this part till the last pictures.There's also an attempt at supernatural scenes(the lovers haunting the musician who believes he caused their death)but it's poorly executed.
The most baffling thing is the years (1929 and 1939) when the action takes place : in her cafe,Pierre 's mother says "my husband and son are gone to war" (which could be quite plausible) but there's no other single hint at WW2.
Robert Lynen who plays the part of Pierre remains the best French child actor of the thirties ,in Duvivier's movies "Le Petit Roi" and mainly "Poil De Carotte" (1932) ,one of that director's masterpieces."Espoirs" was his next-to-last movie.He became a resistant fighter in WW2 and was tortured and killed by the Nazis.
