Watch at Home 10.17.2023

My Mother's Castle

Directed by Yves Robert
Film Movement Classics
1990
98 Minutes
France
French
Family, Comedy, Biography, Coming of Age, Classics
PG

Longing to return to the hills he grew to love during a magical summer holiday, 11-year-old Marcel (Julien Ciamaca) finds happiness once again when his father, Joseph (Philippe Caubère), is provided access to a private footpath they can use to easily travel from Marseilles to Provence. Years later as an adult, Marcel purchases a castle and realizes it is the same estate his adoring mother Augustine (Nathalie Roussel) was always terrified to cross along their journey.

Based on the bestselling memoirs of French novelist, playwright and filmmaker Marcel Pagnol (the acclaimed author of Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring), MY MOTHER'S CASTLE is a “carefully boisterous” and “tastefully joyous” (Los Angeles Times) continuation of the story of Pagnol's youth as recounted in the Yves Robert classic MY FATHER'S GLORY.

Director & Cast

  • Director: Yves Robert
  • Starring: Philippe Caubère
  • Starring: Nathalie Roussel
  • Starring: Didier Pain
  • Starring: Thérèse Liotard
  • Starring: Julien Ciamaca

Trailer

Photos

Reviews

  • "And now here we are back again in the hills of Provence, in the second of two remarkable memory-films based on the childhood of the great French writer Marcel Pagnol. It is likely that no one, not even Pagnol, had a childhood quite this perfect, and yet all happy childhoods grow happier in memory, and it is the nature of film that we can share some of Pagnol's happiness."
    Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times
  • "Whatever the interval that separates one's viewing of "My Father's Glory" from that of the equally enchanting "My Mother's Castle," it is only an intermission. This second film, like the first, is raised to the heights of voyeuristic pleasure by countless family feasts, happy occasions, warm smiles and intoxicating memories. "My Mother's Castle," a film that is all banquets and bouquets, concentrates as fully on life's smaller joys as on its larger ones, and does so with the kind of panache that has already charmed much of France. "
    Janet Maslin, The New York Times
  • "My Mother's Castle maintains an enchantment that paints across its canvas with lyrical watercolor swirls. "
    Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle
  • "Robert catches the book’s reverie, its wistful tenderness. "
    Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times
  • "A sheer delight."
    TV Guide