This 1999 French film pretends to document a year in a small Provencal village, and while its actors and settings do come from director Christian Philibert’s hometown, the characters are fictional. The film tries to charm with scenes of somewhat eccentric locals conversing in a bar, caring for their animals, reciting bad poetry, and participating in the “32nd Goat Festival.” Were this an actual documentary, this might at least have some anthropological value; from a dramatic film one expects more visual intelligence than its bland, offhand camera work has to offer.
