"Germinal", based on a novel by Emile Zola, is an epic film which studies the anatomy of a strike in a 19th century French coal mine. During it's 2.5+ hour run time, the film shows the wretchedness of coal miners, their deplorable living conditions, their attempts to organize, negotiations, strike, rioting, police suppression, sabotage, etc. The story is woven around a handful of characters who represent the forces at work; management, union, profiteers, scabs, etc.

About Zola's novel, Havelock Ellis wrote: "It was neither amusing enough nor outrageous enough to attract the multitude". So it is with the film which emphasizes realism over romanticism and exists more as a study of a timeless social/political issue than pure commercial entertainment. A must see for cinema buffs but not likely have broad commercial appeal.

I've never been interested in costume drama's that deal with 18th and 19th century high society. As I once said before in another review: "There is just too much gold foil, too much ugly wigs and pompous costumes, too much over the top decors, just too much of everything that I detest in it" and I really haven't changed my idea about that so far. But when I'm able to see a movie that deals with the life of the ordinary man in that time period, than I'm always willing to give it a chance.

"Germinal" is such a movie that deals with life of the ordinary man and woman. It tells the story of the coal miners in the region of Lille, in the North of France at the end of the 19th century. They are all poor, they work too hard in awful conditions and they don't get paid what they deserve by the bosses who only want to get richer and richer by doing whatever they can so they won't have to pay a cent to their workforce. Of course the miners aren't happy with that situation and when they get into contact with two men who both want to change the situation, one a communist union man and the other one an anarchist, the miners soon go on a strike, with some very unpleasant consequences as a result...

What first went through my mind while seeing this one, was that this movie has a lot of similarities with "Daens" (1993), the Belgian movie that tells the story of the poor textile workers in Flanders at the end of the 19th century. It's the same time period and both regions are only about 60 miles or 90 kilometers apart. If you like to see what life in the European industrial regions at the end of the 19th century was like, than both movies are certainly something you shouldn't miss.

What I liked about the movie as well was that it had a good pace and that it stayed interesting from the beginning until the end. It could have been very easy for the director to make a movie about this subject that lasted 5 or 6 hours, but than it might have lost much of its power. Now, you get a pretty good idea of what life in that region during the industrial revolution was like, without having to struggle through too many details that don't really contribute to the story. Next to the good story, I must say that I also liked the acting. Even though Gérard Depardieu hasn't always made the best choices of movies to play in, I always like him in the role of the ordinary man, the underdog that has to fight the system. I liked him in the mini-series "Les Misérables" as well and he has the same kind of role in this movie. The other actors did a fine job as well, even though I have to admit that I don't really know anyone of them, except for Bernard Fresson perhaps. All in all this is a very good adaptation of the novel by Émile Zola. It does exactly what I expected from it and that's why I give it at least a 7.5/10.

In 1867, Karl Marx theorized the struggle of the proletarian masses in economical words. But the emotional resonance rang from Emile Zola's "Germinal", 18 years after "The Capital" and the impact was so strong that at the death of Zola in 1902, a group of coal-miners marched during his funeral shouting "Germinal".

Scholars look as it as a masterpiece of naturalism, a genre where Zola was the figurehead. His method consisted in collecting information from knowledge, then researches, on-the-spot investigations (as far as going down into the mine for "Germinal"). While he could collect notebooks with hundred pages worth of information, Zola insisted that the lion share of his story was the result of his own imagination and intuition, mirroring even his old friend Flaubert's conviction that a writer should also learn to make notebooks to better despise them.

Personally, I do trust Zola's approach as I discover in the book characterization as rich and labyrinthine as a mine's gallery, from Lantier, the idealistic 'troublemaker', Maheu the quiet family man, Maheude, his hot-tempered wife or the brutish, alcoholic Chaval. Zola's book might say more about the torments of the working class (whose condition history slightly rose above slavery) than any documentary, and Zola's stance during the Dreyfus Affair cleared any doubt about the man's humanitarian motives.

And "Germinal" is humanitarian as it reveals deep and disturbing truths without romanticizing the coal-miners: idealistic, rude, sensitive, ugly, or disillusioned. Lantier, portrayed by Renaud, embodies the outsider's perspective, the most likely to be the spark that ignites the wrath, as people from the mine are too alienated by their routine they can't see the machines they became. Yet there are no villains either, as the bourgeois are portrayed with similar impartial exactitude, just failing to inspire pity because they can eat. Movie-wise, "Germinal" is no Eisenstein material.

Indeed, after the storm is gone, everything gets back to normal, Zola's final paragraph seems to predict that the next time will be the right one, but history didn't echo Zola's optimism although the prediction didn't necessarily imply for the last century. The problem with Claude Berri's film is that it is one century too late, and we have enough perspective to accept the ending as a defeat, the voice-over narration doesn't cancel the downer feeling. But who said you couldn't make great film out of a failure?

Berri proved to be a lucid painter of human corruption, judging by his two masterpieces "Jean de Florette" and "Manon des Sources". And in "Germinal", he reminds us that the worst human traits transcend classes. One of the key characters is Chaval, a brute infatuated with Maheu's daughter Catherine. Jean-Roger Milo plays with gusto the street-smart man who's no less idealistic than the next schmuck but whose soul is already rotten by life's meaninglessness. Judith Henry, as Catherine, is sweet and submissive as going down the mine lowered her self-esteem in the process and made her believe she deserved Chaval more than the decent Lantier.

The matriarch, (played by Miou-Miou) isn't the voice of consolation either, she resents Catherine because she now belongs to Chaval and so does her wage. That's one of the subtle lessons of "Germinal", coal-miners are as driven by money as capitalists, maybe more because it's a matter of life and death. The company gives them a house (the 'corons' in the North of France are an architectural heritage of the industrial era), and enough money not to die from hunger. They make children, as many arms to work but as many mouths to feed, stability depends on this fragile balance. But the film, following Zola's method and echoing the didacticism of John Ford's "Grapes of Wrath", explains why the strikes start.

Minders are paid for the coal, but not the timbers they use to shore up the shafts, so they put less spirit in the timbering, causing more accidents. When the company pays the shoring, the wages for coal are reduced, leading to an even less profitable situation. On an intellectual level, "Germinal" works, so well in fact that the film might be less impressive when it gets spectacular. Indeed, Berri is never as efficient as during intimate or subtle interactions, when the rich daughter Cecile doesn't give the whole sweet bun to Maheude's children, only the half of it, it mirrors the way rich people hardly renounce their share.

Miou-Miou is never as effective as in the quieter moments, her weird grunts at some tragic moments made me turn down the volume so my neighbors wouldn't get the wrong idea of the type of movies I watched. Renaud is a natural, he was the reason Berri wanted to make the film like Coluche for "Tchao Pantin" and Yves Montand for the Provence two-parter, as the singing Vox Populi, Renaud was meant to play Lantier. And Gérard Depardieu plays the brave old chap in a role that (I guess) wasn't too demanding. Some scenes are rather unnecessary as they had nothing to the big picture and all the "big" scenes with crowds of workers marching over the hills say less than the infamous cadaver's mutilation that contributed to the film's most shocking image.

I won't spoil the scene but the look on the man's faces says a lot about the way things get easily out of control and it says something more about human nature. Berri adapted two movies from Marcel Pagnol, s about the basic need for water but saying so much more about the unlimited vileness of greed. "Germinal" works in a reverse way, on the surface, it might feel like a hymn for dignity, but maybe it's a film that also shows how far people go, when driven by some force as desperate and uncontrollable as hunger, to show, or to warn us.

"Germinal" (French, 1993): This EPIC story, adapted from Emile Zola's novel and put to film by Claude Berri (director of "Jean de Florette" and "Manon of the Spring"), is the gritty depiction of hard working coal miners in 1800's France, trying to eek out a living and better their lives by forming a labor union. Loaded with issues rising through the Industrial Age, Gerard Depardieu, Miou-Miou, Judith Henry, and Jean-Roger Milo deservedly star in a frighteningly bleak setting, with ominous musical scoring, and the relentless, black dust of coal. Comparisons to the wealthy mine owners lives, opulent and very isolated from their industry's realities, are blatant and clear. Zola wanted some economic and moral balance – even just a little – and set about depicting a situation that could not be denied.

Reducing Zola's masterful but monstrously long novel to a movie is the problem that Claude Berri does not seem to have resolved. He sticks close to Zola's text, which means that we get lots of undeveloped snippets of what were very developed scenes in the novel. If you don't know the novel, this probably causes a certain sense of confusion. If you do know the novel, and it is well-known in France, you have the sense that you are just skimming the surface. I think that Berri would have done better to be less faithful to the novel, or at least less comprehensive in his adaptation of it.

That said, there are most certainly good things in this movie. Miou Miou delivers, in my opinion, the movie's best performance. No, she is not at all the earth mother that Zola's la Meheude is. But she acts with her face, saying far more with a facial gesture than many words would have said. In a movie that skims over a lot of material, that makes for very effective acting. Depardieu is sometimes very good - physically he is perfect for the part of le Maheu - sometimes he seems to deliver the lines without thinking about them. The actor who plays Souvarine is very striking.

The cinematography is nice, but does not convey a lot of what Zola emphasizes in the novel: the heat and lack of space in the mine tunnels, etc.

A good movie if you haven't read the novel; a disappointing one if you have.

It is a must-watch movie for anyone working in the field of public health and occupational health.

I watched the movie with the advice of Prof Dr Bulent Kilic. He is a public health professor and also the president of the Turkish Association of Public Health Specialists (HASUDER).

I also want to read the book as soon as possible.

"Germinal" is a vivid, colorful, eloquent rendering of how the life of mine workers was in Europe in late 19th century. It is also a powerful illustration of how a strike could come about in that time, and how difficult - almost hopeless - it could seem for those dirt-poor people to try and improve their miserable life conditions. Of course, the contrast with the bourgeoisie is striking and thought-provoking. Depardieu (as Maheu) is, as usual, a giant figure, and most other actors are also very convincing. One question that remains when you saw it all is : can you really change a society's deep, unfair structure without violence?

I saw this movie when I was a young lad and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. Many scenes were so impactful that they stayed with me all throughout my life.

Well, I rewatched it and it can't be denied that this is an impactful movie from an artistic point of view. There are splendid scenes depicting violence, misery, and a sort of aggressive sexuality.

But it's a supremely simple movie, from a philosophical standpoint. The workers are hungry, they have an uprising, and violent and sexual things happen. It's like a very artistic exploitation movie.

Who is to blame for this? It's all very vague and not in a skillful or subtle way. It just felt like the director or writer didn't care. On the one hand, the workers work hard for little pay and come to suffer from hunger, but on the other hand many factories close because they are unprofitable and the poor have like a million chyldren. Can you really blame the rich here for this one?

Well, from the events of the movie, it's not clear the rich are to blame. So it's a balanced and realistic portrayal of both sides, right? Not exactly. The rich are quite rude and arrogant, so they still come off looking as villains.

Is the main character a communist rabble rouser? Well, at the beginning he's just a shy guy looking for work. By the end he somehow transforms into a revolutionary for no real reason.

Finally, the romance is hilarious. Near the end it's shoehorned in that there was a romance even though no such thing was built up throughout the movie except perhaps by the most subtle of mutual glances. I guess if you have two attractive young people in close proximity in a movie you have to assume they have to bang at some point?

The plot is compelling, it has many good gritty scenes of working poverty, and the music is excellent, but ultimately it's a simplistic movie that amounts to just stylized mob violence and rough sexuality.

Honourable Mentions: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1914). A novel in English apparently written by a working class person that explains and dramatises the hopeless situation of the working class in very capitalist early industrialised England. I've yet to see a movie that portrays these matters skillfully.

A straightforward, generally fast-moving, recounting of a gripping social struggle, portrayed without any special effects for special effects' sake (though I think there was plenty of unobtrusive special effects), with the emphasis always on the dramatic line; good acting by all concerned; generally plain, clear photography that served the story-telling and not some "artsy" vision--all these added up, for me, to an enthuasiastic vote of "ten." Cannot praise this film enough. No, it's not some summit of art, but it's a textbook example of how to tell a story, keep the audience's attention, and honor the dramatic basis of the project instead of indulging in "artistic" whims and triviliaties that will appear dated in five or six years.

I'll be watching this one again. (By the way, I found the distant shot of the striking workers marching across the plain especially moving. And I had the feeling throughout the film that this was how things really looked at that terrible period of French, and European, history.)

In mid-nineteenth-century northern France, a coal mining town's workers are exploited by the mine's owner. One day, they decide to go on strike, and the authorities repress them.

First, my confession: I have not read "Germinal". I've thought about it, but among all the great works of literature, it never quite made it to the top of the list. That being said, from what I hear, this film follows the story rather close.

What strikes me is how much "smut" the film has. At least in the first half. I find it hard to imagine such things being in the novel, but rural men forcing themselves on rural women in France seems oddly normal. I guess my opinion of France is pretty strange.

The pacing of this film was very well done. Not a scene didn't feel like it didn't belong. The production and the recreation of the era was very convincing, much credit to the director who got this right when it's so easy to get it wrong.

The acting was excellent, Depardieu as always fantastic, he was convincing as a hard-working simple man finally at breaking point. The brute was played excellently. Lantier won me over as the film went along. And if I remember correctly the Russian(or Polish) anarchist from the book stole every scene he was in. And of the course the women...(except for that one scene haha) Some people are saying this film is too leftist, but there are scenes to differ as with the book. Essentially a idea proposed is that a working man given a fortune will inevitably go down the same path as the bourgeois. They feel at once hate and envy.

A very good film and very grim but not nearly so much as the book.

Tackling a book such as Germinal is a mammoth task - and one that I always thought was extremely difficult to transfer onto the big screen.

There are two ways you can do it, keep it simple or explore everything and bore the audience to death. You can see here that the director has decided to keep the story as simple and straightforward as possible.

This means there are a few gaping holes in the film, as it ignores some of the intricacies of the story and many of the sub-plots which punctuate the story and add to the feel of the book.

In one sense he succeeds, as the tempo of the film is high and it rattles along at a fair pace, not reading like a 2 and a half hour story.

But the major drawback of this tactic is that Germinal ends up looking like a simplistic noble workers versus the greedy bosses story, when the novel is anything but that.

Scorn is poured on both sides with equal contempt by Zola, and plenty of sympathy is given to some of the "wealthy" protaganists in the book.

Having said this, I do understand that in order to keep the film from turning into a 4 hour behemoth, you need to try and keep it as simple as possible.

On the whole, however, it is pretty well acted and the art direction is utterly breathtaking. The villages, the pits, the landscapes, the mines are fabulously shot. You really can feel the poverty oozing from every inch of the screen.

Gerard Depardieu (Maheu) and Renaud (Ettiene) put in some pretty convincing turns but feel that Jean-Roger Milo rather over-egged Chaval, turning him into some pseudo incredible hulk type character who is incapable of speaking normally. Judith Henry also seems a little to young and fresh faced to play Catherine.

I think I let my interpretation of the book cloud my judgement, and as a result I was disappointed because I expected more from the film than I should have.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Genius - Hollywood can never touch this.

We should be thankful that there is a country that produces real films - and of this scope.

I cringe to think how badly this would have been mutilated by Americans - we'd have a happy ending, they'd "go easy" on the commie stuff, there would be no premarital relations, the shopkeeper would be spared, some bland and muscly "action hero" type would catch the saboteur character and they'd fight with wrenches - sparks flying in the mineshaft. They would take out all social commentary, rename it etc etc... And then - the sequel "Germinal 2 - the Heroes of the Pit!" in a modern day setting with oil wells and helicopters.

Anyway, in all sincerity, I hope the accountants of Hollywood never try to butcher this story.

Berri once again turns a book into a near masterpiece, as he did with "Jean de Florette" and "Manon of the Spring". This adaptation of Emile Zola's dark polemic novel abut the hard lives of French miners in 19th century France is both political and epic, with neither element drowning out the other.

Very strong performances abound. Miou-Miou is heartbreaking and, at times, frightening in her rage, as a mother and wife trying to help her family survive on the slave like wages paid buy the mine -- her anger growing ever harder to control as the mine literally consumers her family. Gerard Depardieu is also excellent as her husband, a big, likable fellow who is finally pushed too far by the bosses and working conditions. He joins with a more educated newcomer to the area, played by the also excellent Renaud, to help start a strike against their bosses, who plead poverty, and the inability to pay the workers more (indeed they want to cut wages), but who live in "Let them eat cake" splendor.

While the film may be heavy handed at times in its cross cutting between the lives of rich and the poor, it escapes the trap of making "the poor" just a lovable, or pitiable mob .These are well drawn individuals, with light and dark sides, (some with more of one than the other) and the violence of the mob is shown as ugly and brutal, if also understandable. Berri is not above acknowledging that it sometimes takes violence to force change, but even if that change may be for the good on the large scale, the violence also always leads to tragedy in the realm of individual human beings.

The film is beautifully shot and art directed, the grim hard life in the mines brought to startlingly real life, full of details and specifics that help, once again, the film transcend generalizations about being poor. These men and women take pride in their difficult, dirty and dangerous work, even as they have reached the end of their tether with their poverty.

Big production values supported by the humane acting and a heart wrenching story of poverty and misery. The script has a few gaping holes in it but you manage to overcome those obstacles and be affected by this touching film.

Prior to this most recent cover of Emile Zola's novel by Claude Berri, they were various renderings on the silver screen before. A silent version was shot in 1913 and remains difficult to watch. In 1962, Yves Allégret's version of Zola's sprawling novel followed very closely the thread of the storytelling which came to the front while the descriptions of the working-classes and the upper classes took a back seat. 30 years later, Berri got down to a new transposition of the novel to the screen to locate her in the vein of French heritage. Developed by the Mitterrand government, this trend spawned films which were meant to be a popular quality cinema facing American blockbusters and to show French culture in literature at key-moments in French history. This movement was at its peak at the dusk of the eighties and the dawn of the nineties with "Jean De Florette", "Manon Des Sources" (1986), "Cyrano De Bergerac" (1990) or "Madame Bovary" (1991). Generally, these films were financially profitable but weren't up to scratch from an artistic perspective. "Germinal" belongs to this category. Probably the most famous installment in the Rougon-Macquart saga, "Germinal" is also one of the most potent French novels ever written. It was a perilous task to transpose it to the screen and Berri partially did well his job. His film follows very closely the staple framework of the novel and only keeps its main installments including some grisly ones (the sequence of the castration). Hence a simplified and watered-down version in which certain moments are clumsily linked up. Overrall, Berri's piece of work joins the list of films derived from novels in which to be as faithful as possible to the basic work can hamper the artistic potential of the film.

Before being a filmmaker or an actor, Berri is especially labeled as a producer and for "Germinal" which was partly sponsored by French government, he had a Pharaonic budget at his disposal to reconstitute a prickly era of French history. Lavish costumes, an authentically built pit village are clear signs of this budget. Places, manners and the living standards of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie which encompassed deep inequalities are faithfully depicted in a hard-hitting way. There's a noticeable detail during the party: the fight between the cocks is an evident metaphor of the class struggle. A blatant gap between the stark pit village, especially the dour house of the Maheu and the lascivious residences of the Gregoire is enhanced by a photography with evocative colors. Berri faithfully captured Zola's novel and his budget was up to scratch to the demands of the novel. But as I mentioned above, Berri is first and for most of a producer. As a filmmaker, his job remains limited to make him go in the restrained circle of the seminal contemporary French filmmakers. Zola's ground-breaking sweep also encompassed a plea in favor of the working classes who lived in squalor and a condemnation of the bourgeoisie in their posh universe. These features are perceptible in Berri's film but that's all. The director contents himself to shoot the watershed and momentum moments of the book without developing his own perception or bringing his personal touch. Berri is unable to create a cinematographic language to render the strength of the most harrowing or blackest moments in the novel. That's why his directing has an academic feel. So, the most blackest aspects of Zola's novel vanish on the screen. In the sequences after the strike, the writer depicted in an incredible harsh style, the Maheu's tawdry conditions and their bigger misery caused by the fiasco of the strike but one doesn't really feel this misery. Then, on the scene when Maigrat the greedy shopkeeper gets emasculated, Zola wanted to raise the wild side of the miners, especially women and it's not palpable in spite of the commendable efforts of the actresses.

The cast gathers a bevy of actors who are representative of French cinema but certain choices are debatable for different reasons. Renaud, one of the most popular and finest contemporary French singers plays his game well as the lead Etienne Lantier but he was a little too old for the role. On the paper, Lantier was about 20-25 years old and Renaud was in his forties when he acted. Beside him, Gérard Depardieu is physically Maheu but his character is psychologically subdued than in the book. The frail Miou-Miou wasn't the ideal actress to epitomize the stout and weakened Maheude. But Laurent Terzieff, a very ambitious thespian only appears for about a quarter of an hour in the whole film but effectively taps his little underwritten part. He just has to pronounce little lines to unveil his great skills of actor. The same goes for Jean Carmet whose character name and moniker, "Bonnemort" (good death) took an ironic dimension when he passed away shortly after the movie reached the streets. Jean Roger Milo was ideally cast as coarse, hairy Chaval.

I don't want to demean Berri. His movie is thoroughly watchable but it is proof that Zola's work needs something else on the screen. His simplified cover hardly does justice to Zola's potent cry of revolt. It is at best mildly entertaining and for the non- speaking French viewers, it can be gratifying but for the French viewers who are Zola insiders, it might be a little frustrating. But it didn't stop this epic movie to ride high in the French box-office and to line Berri's pockets.

Once again Depardieu presents an arresting image. There are a few performances which do not quite keep up to his standard - otherwise the acting is first class.

The sets and attention to detail are in my view the best proof of Claude Berri's worth as a double César winner. There are a few gaps (understandably) in the story. The general feeling is of a pacy and entertaining story. The message is clear and in my view is every bit as politically envigorating as Ken Loach's underated Spanish Civil War classic - Land & Freedom.

If you have a leftish leaning, the graphic depiction of poverty and the slow creation of the miners' collective movement will probably leave you with a lump in your throat. It could just as well leave you feeling that the message is overplayed.

All in all, the film has everthing and cannot fail to arouse emotion. A bravura creation which should not be missed.

A definite 8/10

Emile Zola's novel "Germinal" is an epic masterpiece. So is Claude Berri's film of it. This film brings out the intensity of Zola's novel, its terror and the shocking divisions in French society during the Second Empire (1852-70). It centres on a community of miners whose bosses effectively pay starvation wages, reduce pay by altering working conditions unfavourably and fine miners for faulty work (whether their fault or not). Conversely, the mine owners expect the miners' families - including children who go down the pit - to save money while themselves living and feasting in luxury.

The miners receive some little acts of kindness from one or two of the younger bourgeois women, but it seems their only real amusements are drinking and watching cock-fighting.

Such a society looks ripe for uprisings by the working class, if not a revolution, though both the novel and the film reflect tensions between revolutionary aims and reformism. The Russian anarchist Souvarine (Laurent Terzieff, of Russian descent) has a crucial role in this context.

The film very probably has a real cast of thousands. It is said to have been the most expensive French film of its time. Tramping en masse across the northern French countryside, the miners are a terrifying sight.

The scenes featuring miners are mostly very dark, a sharp contrast with the colour and elegance of the pit bosses' homes. They live in hovels where whole families have to share a dirty bath, and we can really feel the terrible dangers of their daily work.

As in the novel, the central characters are Toussaint Maheu (Gérard Depardieu) and his family. He displays great dignity and a generous spirit, while his wife "La Maheude" (Miou-Miou), not called Madame Maheu, has a quiet intensity and burning sense of injustice on her family's behalf. Etienne Lantier (Renaud), one of Zola's "outsider" figures, seems to be less of a catalyst for radical change than in the novel. He's more reactive, but has a thoughtful, brooding presence.

This film is inevitably more schematic than the novel. It can't, for instance, reproduce a poetic passage evoking the plight of horses down the pit (though the horses in the film look pretty sad). More than one disaster occurs in the story, and I think the transitions back to normal life look too quick. There are touches of caricature, especially in the villainous Chaval (Jean-Roger Milo) who seems a bit "stagey". In contrast, the mean-spirited local shopkeeper Maigrat (Gérard Croce) is convincingly odious; he suffers a horrible fate, though it is shown more explicitly in the novel.

Overall, this film by Claude Berri and his sister and co-writer Arlette Langmann fully deserves to stand alongside Emile Zola's great novel.

Germinal is a film about the workers of a mining company in the North of France, during the seventies of the nineteenth century. it was the time of the First Socialist International, and the rise of the workers movement. The story is based on the book by Emile Zola, with the same title. Although Zola was not a socialist, he sketches a debunking image of the misery and poverty of the common people. I bought the DVD on a visit in Brussels, the bilingual capital of Belgium. Surprisingly the Frenchspeaking minority hardly masters the Dutch language, and this is reflected in the DVD, that lacks any subtitles (not even English ones). Being a Dutchman, my French is rather poor, so it would be unjustified for me to comment on the dialogs. However, the pictures and now and then an understandable passage are clear enough to convey the developments. The mining company operates still in the old tradition, with a true capitalist entrepreneur and owner. The mine is dangerous, and the economic crisis forces the wages to ever lower levels. The miners of both sexes are primitive folks, and we know from contemporary reports that the harsh conditions greatly contributed to their dissoluteness (which of course is less their fault than that of the then employers and system). Naturally they become rebellious, and start a strike fund. A roaming socialist agitator arrives, and becomes engaged in the mining company. When the wages are once again lowered, the miners go on strike. Their financial resistance is low (unions were scarce, and strikes were usually started impulsively), and soon hunger and distress break the workers solidarity. Some of them resume their work, which escalates the situation. The rage of the miners and the revolutionary agitation mix into an explosive atmosphere. The strikers assault the mine, make havoc, and lynch the local storekeeper (who is even castrated by the mob). Now the army is called in to occupy the mine, and protects the non-strikers. When the strikers start to throw stones at the soldiers, they fire into the crowd killing tens of people. For the moment the order is restored, and work is resumed. The ordeal continues, when a bore penetrates the galleries and causes explosions in the installations. Again lots of people are killed. The film follows one particular mining family, who is approximately decimated during the unfolding course of things. Finally the grandfather strangles a daughter of the mine-owner, who visits their house in order to bring relief. Indeed the contrast between the miners' misery and the capitalists' abundance could hardly be more profound. In spite of the at times shocking violence used by the miners, one has to sympathize with them. It was the period of forced capital accumulation, in which the wealthy people were obsessed by economic growth due to capital investments and in the process destroyed the level of consumption and well-being of the people. This film is a good reminder, even without understandable dialogs.

This film is based on a book by French Novelist Emile Zola and is one of a series called the Rougon-Macquart which also includes "Gervaise", "Nana" and "Au Bonheur des Dames". Now Zola was a well known leftist (commy) so you know that the film as the book is very simplistic painting a picture on one side of the "poor old workers" and on the other of the "wicked capitalist bosses" living in luxury. We all know that in reality it was not exactly that but this is the sort of thing leftist people like to hear as it gives them a reason to exist. Also the various groups of miners fight amongs themselves, some want to work others want to strike, those who want to strike try to selfishly prevent the others from going to work. In addition to that, an Anarchist subversive actually sabotages the mine, killing many of the miners in the process and then slinks away in the night. He believes in total bloodshed so the world may start again anew and couldn't care two hoots about the fate of the miners.We also see a baker attacked by the crowd hungry for bread and his private parts cut off ( totally unneccessary scene put in on purpose to shock audiences no doubt) So much for the rubbishy politics of the film !

That said, cinematographically the film is not bad - it is too long and many of the scenes are dismal - situated in a cold damp mining area in Northern France. But the quality of the acting is very Good. Depardieu and notably Miou-Miou pull off remarkable performances, and the later scenes in the flooded mine come across well when you listen to them on Home Cinema. I don't think this is the sort of film one would want to see over and over again as it is "miserable" like another one I saw called "Angela's Ashes" but it is good to have seen it once. The film ends with the mine starting up again and the miners going back to work but Depardieu is dead and Renaud leaves the area to look for work elsewhere. But the ending is not optismistic and you don't feel, after 150 minutes of film that you have got anywhere since the beginning.

In short, a dreary and politically orientated plot, but worth seeing for the actors' performances.

Having just finished the book and watched the previous 1913 and 1963 feature films, I can say that this is the best film adaptation of Germinal so far. The deviations from the book is much less than the other two. There were missing parts for sure, such as the adventures of Jeanlin, murder of the soldier, meeting of the miners in the forest. Unlike the previous two films, most of the explicit scenes are included.

There are some minor differences also. I waited a long time to see the fate of Zacharie through the ending. In the film, after he dies of gas explosion, his corpse is taken out in one piece; however, in the novel his head is blown away. One other difference is that Etienne and Catherine's days after the mine collapse is much more dreadful than the film; unfortunately, none of the films can depict their agony sufficiently.

Technically, among the cast, both Gérard Depardieu and Jean-Roger Milo are very successful as Maheu and Chaval. However, the biggest drawback is Renaud (as Etienne). In the book, Etienne is more aggressive and shows vicious animal instincts at times. In the film, this is softened.

Photography is generally captivating. However, I found some scenes extremely dark. They could have created the same gloominess with some more effort on make-up and costumes.

Overall, this is the most accurate feature film adaptation of Germinal ever made. Although it is not perfect, it is very pleasant to watch.

Very important and beautifully filmed movie about a coal mine strike in Northern France in XIXth century, adapted from realist literature masterpiece by Émile Zola. Cinematography and art direction are great and I really wish to watch it eventually on big screen one day. The usage of many extras and the camera moves also contribute to depict carefully that historic atmosphere. The script is able to contrast liberal narrative and factual social-political issue of deprivation and over-exploitation of labor. It deals very well with related political issues such as internationalism x nationalism, selfish individualism x class solidarity, multifaceted nature of violence, the diverse tactics to pursue a goal, class hatred towards elits or scorn for the poor, and commitment to the cause x bribery and ambition. Other issues are also very well worked, such as patriarchy/mysoginy and family structure in working class, and life in 1860 Europe. The only element bothered me a little was seeing Gérard Dépardieu portraying a character that represents just the opposite of what he publicly defends in real life; however, he is a good actor and it does not dumpen film outcome anyway.

This is a big budget film, especially if you consider the cast, and a very rare role for Renaud, the famous French singer. Adapted from the also famous Emile Zola's masterpiece, the most powerful social movie that you can imagine. It is also a semi documentary about the coal miners, as terrififc as as Martin Ritt's MOLLY MAGUIRES, but less from a political point of view. It is riveting, gripping and Claude Berri gives here one of his best films. It was a big success in France and was aired many times on sunday evenings. Gerard Depardieu has his character nearly stolen by the jaw dropping performance of Renaud the singer.