The Baker's Wife

The Baker’s Wife is a warm, funny comedy carried by an actor who makes its occasional thinness worth tolerating. Marcel Pagnol takes a heartbroken baker seriously while allowing him to be absurd, and the combination gives the film much of its appeal. There is no need to pretend that everything around Raimu is equally distinguished. We recommend it for the care with which he makes Aimable Castanier’s distress matter, even when the film invites us to laugh.

Raimu gives the comedy an awkward human consequence: we can enjoy Aimable’s foolishness and then feel uncomfortable about having enjoyed it. We were moved by the baker’s heartbreak, because the performance makes his pain felt without dropping the comic absurdity that first catches our attention. The sadness belongs to the same man. He does not have to become sensible or dignified before we can care about him, and Raimu never makes sympathy feel like an obligation imposed on the audience.

Marcel Pagnol’s screenplay treats the rural community as a collection of people worth attending to individually. The priest, played by Robert Vattier, and the teacher, played by Robert Bassac, belong to the same social picture as the baker and Aurélie Castanier, played by Ginette Leclerc. The writing’s affection does not require everybody to be admirable, which helps keep the warmth tolerable. Even so, some of the village comedy interests us less than the baker’s predicament, and the difference is noticeable.

Georges Benoît’s cinematography belongs to the film’s conservative side, and Marcel Pagnol’s direction gives us little reason to overlook that limitation. We do not need elaborate camera movements in a comedy, but we do want images that contribute something beyond accommodating good acting. Here the visual approach seldom commands our attention on its own. That leaves the performers carrying a considerable share of the responsibility for keeping us interested, a task Raimu handles more persuasively than the film as a whole.

Our response to Suzanne de Troye’s editing and Vincent Scotto’s music is similarly restrained: neither is a principal reason to seek this out. The film runs 133 minutes, a substantial commitment when its strongest attraction is so concentrated in one performance. Its warmth helps, but cannot make every stretch equally engaging. When our interest slackens, the modest filmmaking offers little compensation, and we become conscious of how much we are waiting for the baker to claim our attention again.

Still, Marcel Pagnol avoids making rural life an automatic claim on our affection. The comedy leaves room for hurt, embarrassment and foolishness, rather than asking us to find a whole community delightful simply because it is small. That distinction matters in a genre prone to treating troublesome neighbours as decorative local colour. Raimu supplies enough discomfort to prevent the sympathy from becoming too easy, and enough humour to keep the suffering from overwhelming the evening.

We would choose this for an evening when acting matters more than pace. Its compassion feels persuasive because the baker remains a comic figure even when his unhappiness becomes difficult to laugh at. Allow for the unadventurous filming and the generous running time. Give Raimu the evening, provided the village can come too.