‘A Magnificent Life’ review: Sylvain Chomet animates the life of Marcel Pagnol

Dir/scr: Sylvain Chomet. France/Luxembourg/Belgium 2025. 90mins

The playwright, writer and film-maker Marcel Pagnol (1895-1974) clearly did have A Magnificent Life – however you think about it will need to have been considerably thornier and extra complicated than the sugar-glazed account depicted within the newest from acclaimed French animation specialist Sylvain Chomet (Triplets Of Belleville). His first animated function since 2010’s The Illusionist, and first function since 2013’s dwell motion Attila Marcel, A Magnificent Life provides a fond, unashamedly soft-hearted portrait of an undeniably essential determine in Twentieth-century French tradition.

A beautiful, decidedly dewy-eyed heritage hagiography

Regardless of his legacy in much-loved latter-day variations equivalent to Jean de Florette, Pagnol just isn’t a reputation that has a lot foreign money with youthful generations, nor exterior France – and within the age of digital animation, this lovingly crafted however visually conservative piece might appear dated dated. Older viewers may take it to their hearts, and its extremely particular cultural references will imply it’s of biggest attraction to devoted Francophiles. 

French title Marcel Et Monsieur Pagnol highlights a story that doubles between the grownup author and his boyhood self. The movie begins with the aged Pagnol (voiced by Laurent Lafitte), his theatrical success declining, wearily considering writing a memoir – which he does with the assistance of his childhood self, one in every of many pleasant visions that hang-out him by way of the movie, which notably additionally consists of his ever-loving late mom Augustine (Géraldine Pailhas).

The movie covers Pagnol’s days as a struggling English trainer newly arrived in Paris along with his spouse, who ultimately leaves, satisfied that he’s losing his time making an attempt to be a playwright. Success ultimately comes along with his 1927 play Topaze, a couple of schoolmaster and impressed by Pagnol’s father. As talkies come to exchange silent motion pictures, Pagnol goes on to discover cinema, ultimately directing his personal much-loved options like Regain (Harvest), Le Shpountz and The Properly-Digger’s Daughter. These movies rejoice the tradition, language and accent of Pagnol’s native Marseilles, the place he creates his personal impartial studio. 

A Magnificent Life additionally briskly covers Pagnol’s wartime profession – he defiantly refuses to cede to Germany’s insistence that he cooperate with its movie business – and his amorous relationships with three actresses who starred in his work, Orane Demazis, Josette Day and Jacqueline Bouvier (whom he later married). Bizarrely, assorted comedy animals seem all through – a chook which spurs on his writing efforts by squawking, “Pagnol! Pagnol!”, a big slobbering canine, an omnivorous sheep that turns into his studio mascot.

As this may counsel, A Magnificent Life incorporates an offputting quota of cuteness together with the nostalgia, and far goofiness in addition to. A number of the supporting voice characterisations are so exaggerated that they barely meet a Hanna-Barbera degree of sophistication.

The animation is as elegant as you’d anticipate from this director, the figures crisply delineated in clear black traces (the well-known ligne claire of French comedian books, a area through which Chomet can also be distinguished). The characters transfer and emote elegantly, and the interval element is as meticulous and as densely evocative as in his different options, with handled clips from Pagnol’s movies vividly illustrating his display screen profession. The textures are equally wealthy, from the grungy autumn tones of an inhospitable Twenties Paris to the balmy Mediterranean solar accompanied by the sound of cicadas (the insect was the symbol for Pagnol’s studio). However the tone doesn’t escape a sure diploma of caprice, even kitsch, as when Augustine is seen floating in a swirl of flowers that then flip into her funeral wreath.  

The movie – billed upfront as a real story, and made with the enter of its topic’s grandson and archivist-biographer Nicolas Pagnol – provides a broad, extremely informative account of a revered life and profession. Whether or not it actually opens up Pagnol’s oeuvre, or makes you need to uncover his work is one other query: reasonably, it appears like a beautiful, decidedly dewy-eyed heritage hagiography.