Time of Secrets

The hills are a character in their own right. How did you manage to give them their rightful place?

We had to magnify the setting and understand Pagnol’s fascination with the hills, where he shot most of his films, while at the same time giving the characters pride of place. In fact, Pagnol himself, as a filmmaker, rarely filmed these landscapes, and certainly not to “make them look pretty”, but as a world of their own, in which his characters are the heroes. For the hills, we actually shot on the locations described by Pagnol, such as the Passetemps valley, where Lili and her father mow the wheat, and the paths leading to Garlaban or Taoumé. The only exceptions: the vast cave into which the children venture is in the Ardèche and the Montmajour house is in the Vaucluse.

Was it easy to find your Marcel?

As with Jean-Baptiste Maunier, the hero of Les CHORISTES, it took a while. That’s normal, but no matter how much you get used to it, it always makes you break out in a cold sweat. We mustn’t convince ourselves by default; the obvious must jump out at us. We began searching the whole of Provence in December 2019. This enabled us to find little Baptiste Négrel (Lili) in Aubagne, Lucie Loste Berset (Isabelle) in Marseille and Tristan Margheriti (Lagneau) in a neighbourhood near the Velodrome, but I didn’t have a Marcel. The confinement was beneficial because it gave me a bit more time. A few weeks before the deadline, we came across Léo Campion…. in the Paris region! What could be more pagnolesque if you remember that Marcel had given the role of Marius to a Parisian of Alsatian origin, Pierre Fresnay, much to Raimu’s displeasure! It was the intensity of his eyes, his presence and his intelligence in situations that convinced me. But filming with a child is always a gamble.

Who did you work with for the animals?

The birds of prey were supplied by local falconers, the goats, sheep, horses and mules by local breeders. We also called on the services of animal trainer Pierre Cadéac. But to survey these hills, both close and secret, with a film crew of 80 people, dozens of lorries and tonnes of equipment, it was essential to surround ourselves with real connoisseurs of the terrain. The garrigue is a demanding area with highly regulated access. Especially when, at the height of the heat, fires were threatening. In fact, in photos from the early 20th century, the period of the film, you can see that these hills were much more wooded and verdant than they are today. Entire clumps of Aleppo pine, fig and olive trees have been wiped out by fire. But we were determined to recreate on screen the magnificence of the plant and animal life described by Pagnol, like a veritable Garden of Eden, made even more beautiful by a child’s vision, thanks to the teams who worked on the images, sets, special effects and animal training.