Wow. I can see why some more recent film have used this plotline. Rarely does a sequel deliver as much as the first movie... Worth it. Good job.

One is so saddened by the cruelty shown in "Jean de Florette" one would think any sympathy for the two men would be impossible. Manon, the daughter of the cruelly treated hunchback, has stayed behind and is living with an old woman. She is utterly beautiful. Ugolin, who has done her great harm, falls madly in love with her, after he sees her bathing in the nude in a little pool in the rocks.. His uncle, his co-conspirator in the manipulation of the spring in the first movie, wants him married so he can carry on the family name. However, he is not an attractive man and she is both frightened and repulsed by him. She watched him dig up their concrete, releasing the water they had trapped, shortly after the death of her beloved father. Manon gets her revenge by finding an underground source for the water and bringing fear and drought to the population that had wronged her family for no reason. the whole community is beside itself and she blames the two men in the public square as they desperately try to go on. The acting is so precise and believable. The movie is so tight and so terse that we are in on every moment. And we learn that decent men sometimes do terrible things. What an outstanding movie.

The second of two films based on Marcel Pagnol's novel , being perfectly adapted , including heartrending interpretations , superb photography and spectacular outdoors . This is a magnificent follow-up to Jean De Florette dealing with life a Provencal village in the 1920s , there two scheming countrymen planning their neighbour to fail his crop and ruin him by means of traps , as the city-born hunchback Jean (astonishing Gerard Depardieu who had his real-life wife Elisabeth Depardieu as screen-partner) chances for survival fade without water for his rabbits . As in drought-ridden Provence there is a single spring that is blocked by two nasty farmers . This sequel concerns on the adult daughter of the dead hunchback called Manon (Emmanuel Beart who subsequently married Daniel Auteuil) , as the action switches 10 years on , she plots vengeance on the two men , (a veteran Yves Montand and his rat-like nephew excellently played by Daniel Auteuil) , whose greedy conspiracy to acquire her her father's land caused his death years earlier. As there takes place as fight for a fertile piece of land. The vendetta proves greatest than she could ever imagine .This devastating follow-up takes up the tale of envy , deception , ambition and jealousy in 1920s rural France . This following is almost as good as the original , though results to be a less involving effort than its predecessor . The first and second installment were simultaneously filmed at a cost of 17 million dollars , a real French record and was a successful box office . On the whole this picture turns out to be sensitive , colorful and with great dramatic effect thanks to interesting as well as thought-provoking script by Gerard Brach , Polanski's usual , helped by the same director Claude Berri . Very good acting for a French all-star cast , such as Yves Montand who gives a touching performance , Daniel Auteuil is once again extraordinary as the dim-witted farmer and a gorgeous Emmanuel Beart as beautiful but shy shepherdess . Enjoyable support cast such as Hippolyte Girardot as the local schoolmaster , Margarita Lozano , among others .Rich cinematography by Bruno Nuytten , plenty of color with the warmth of a French countryside in summer . Emotive and sensitive score Jean-Claude Petit , including Giuseppe Verdi music . This well lauded and awarded motion picture was compellingly written and directed by Claude Berri , along the first part he creates an imposing achievement ; together they make up a dramatic masterpiece . It was showered with prizes , as British Academy : the best adaptation , screenplay and actor Daniel Auteuil ; and French Cesar to actress , Emmanuel Beart , and actor , Daniel Auteuil . Rating : Essential and indispensable watching . Well worth seeing .

I have many favorites, and this is one of the crème de la crème. This is a visually stunning film more like beautiful photographic montage. It is simple, tragic story well told, unlike many of today's plots - implausibly lame, suffering on a CGI crutch for 85 minutes. The simple story is about enduring truths which have been the mainstay of the Greek classics and Shakespeare: Our human strengths, our failings, our virtues, and our vices. The story may be a fiction, but its kernel is not. It is stories and story telling like this which has kept our rapt attention for four thousand years.First we should understand that this film is NOT A SEQUEL, but the second half the novel by Marcel Pagnol which would have been too long as a single film, and out of necessity, was shot as two. The first half is titled, Jean de Florette. Neither film stands alone as satisfactory because, obviously, it would be incomplete, and naturally, is also important that the two halves be viewed in sequence. For a fairly dispassionate précis of the plots, I suggest reading the ones on Wikipedia and the discussion boards, so I won't be repetitive here. JdF & MotS were both shot at the same time in 1986 with a budget of $17 million making it/them the biggest budget French films up to that time. JdF grossed $86M worldwide, and of that sum, only $4.9M was from the USA. MotS grossed $56M worldwide, of which only $3.9M was from the USA. In other words, culture films are not a good fit for the American viewing audience, and the gross revenue numbers bear this out. The rest of the world seems to bear out this conclusion.Foreign language films rarely do well in the USA for the simple reason that the vast majority of the viewing audience are unilingual anglophones who do not wish to burden themselves with having to work at "understanding" their entertainment - they wish to merely consume it. If it requires the work of reading subtitles or thought, it becomes unpalatable. This film requires your attention and thought!But to be fair to the US viewers, the subtitles are at times incomplete or inaccurate, and unlike the spoken word, they do not convey the emphasis or importance of certain bits of dialogue well. The plot is woven steadily throughout the film, so the viewers with no understanding at all of the French language are missing essential dialogue, and therefore plot.The bottom line is this: You will either be entranced by these two films and love them, or you will be bored by the first 15 minutes, and you'll translate that into "bad film." If your highest quality level of reading is Marvel comics then I suggest you stay away from this one.However, I recall years ago walking into a video store where this was playing on all the monitors. All the patrons in the store, ranging in age from 5 to 75 years, were standing transfixed watching this film. There was something magical about it!