Les gardiennes

Xavier Beauvois's film 'The Guardians' tells the story of a rural French family left behind during the First World War while the young menfolk are off fighting at the front. It's a quiet and observational movie, watching the rhythms of the agricultural calendar while human life is in some senses on hold. Unfortunately, the conceit is rather overdone: in six years, we see almost no signs of joy or even simple boisterousness, as if the war shifted everyone into a permanent state of dignified melancholy. The result is a overly slow and solemn story.

I was smitten by Iris Bry as Francine and entranced by the film, thinking about French landscape from a different point of view in those war years. If you love film, sit back and enjoy a wonderful story that differs from the usual WW1fare.

A war film about the women left behind to struggle to work the land, with a classic tale of class, love and rejection, and final survival.

The film follows the rhythms of the farming year with the most gorgeous photography, lingering on details, faces, animals. I usually like films to have pace, but this one is most rewarding without that, and has strong emotional heft. The passion for the land runs deep both in rural areas, and French literature, and finds its cinematic expression here, notably at the end. The grief and anguish as telegrams come of death and capture Is finely portrayed.

Francine, the hard working orphan , well played, attracts our sympathy and support . If Hortense, the widowed farm owner, is a strong character, Francine is even more so, a survivor.

I thought the film was mediocre. The ending definitely left me confused and wondering what happened with the rest of the film.

Photography is beautiful and the actors do their best with a script which is anaemic in comparison with the novel on which the film is based. Many of the more interesting characters in the book are omitted, along with half of the setting - the people who live on the waterways. The ending is unbelievable.