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Les granges brulées (1973) More at IMDbPro »

13 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Signoret/Delon round 2, 13 August 2004
Author: dbdumonteil

This odd pairing had already happened once the year before with "la veuve Couderc" ,a George Simenon adaptation ,with fair results.

Like the first one,"les granges brulées " (=the burned barns :nothing burns in the movie ,mind you,it's the name of Signoret's farm)takes place in a rural area ,to be precise in the Jura Mountains,in the Franche-Comté.Signoret is cast again as a tough farmer who dominates her whole family (her daughter is played by her own daughter Catherine Allégret).A woman's corpse is found near the farm.And a judge (Delon) comes to the place to investigate .The family provides the usual suspects and on with the show.

Well,the detective plot is never exciting and its solution devoid of interest.What matters is the depiction of the family's clannishness (which Jacques Becker had brilliantly tackled in "Goupi Main Rouges" thirty years before ),the beautiful snow-covered landscapes and the young ones 'longing to leave their native mountains for the city.Delon and Signoret are both good and give sensitive performances.But most people think they did a better job in "la veuve Couderc".Nice score by Jean-Michel Jarre.

6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Barnstormers, 10 November 2005

Author: writers_reign

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

If all you knew about this prior to watching it was that the title translates as The Burning Barns you might be forgiven for anticipating a touch of the Southern Gothics, especially if you were on nodding terms with Faulkner and Tennessee Williams both of whom have written about barn burning as if it were a minor Art form requiring both skill and finesse and at worst a semi-respectable/legitimate occupation. You would, however, soon be disabused because what we have here is yet another story in a rural setting - in this case the Jura - involving a large family headed by matriarch Simone Signoret who owns a farm named The Burning Barns. The body of a young woman is discovered on land owned by Signoret and serves as a springboard to put the somewhat dysfunctional family under a microscope. Alain Delon arrives to head the investigation and the fun/fascination is watching two generations of French actors teaming up again in the wake of the previous year's success Le Veuve Coudroc. There's little in the way of thriller, mystery element but Signoret and Delon are augmented by the likes of Paul Crachet (who appeared with Signoret in L'Armee des Ombres), a young and almost unrecognizable Bernard Le Coq, Miou-Miou and Signoret's real-life daughter Catherine Allegret. It's very watchable and definitely recommended.

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