Le cheval d'orgueil

This is a thoroughly wonderful movie made, unfortunately, for a steadily shrinking audience. Pier-Jakes Helias' Chevel d'orgueil is not a novel, but a memoire that recounts not just one child's life, but the entire culture in which he lived, inland Brittany (l'Argoat) primarily before World War I. The movie has no plot as such. It is a series of vignettes that illustrate, very well, different aspects of Breton inland life at the time. The dialogue is sometimes in Breton, sometimes in French, depending (largely but not always) on what language the characters would actually have spoken in a given situation.

The unfortunate thing about this very good movie is that it really doesn't explain the culture it presents, it just presents it. As a result, if you are not already familiar with the culture it presents, a lot of it will not mean very much to you. While I generally don't like voice-over commentary, this is one movie that, for most non-Breton viewers, would greatly benefit from one.

So, a wonderful movie. But, I concede, one that will not mean a lot to those not already immersed in inland Breton culture.