Alicia I love this movie so much

Micitype Pretty Good

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

gavin6942 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.

Zee Folk 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.

adamflinter 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

mifunesamurai 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.