The first part of Claude Berri’s two-part adaptation of a Marcel Pagnol novel, with Gerard Depardieu as a noble hunchback trying to start a new life as a farmer in southwest France, Yves Montand as a wily local peasant out to cheat him out of his property, and Daniel Auteuil as the latter’s naive nephew. Not really a complete work without Manon of the Spring, the sequel, but Bruno Nuytten’s cinematography and Berri and Gerard Brach’s script keep things moving along pleasantly and professionally (1986). (JR)