The first I knew of this story was Xavier Beauvois's 2018 film version. The original title is Les Gardiennes, which reveals, in a way that the English doesn't, that the guardians in question are women. Specifically, they are the Frenchwomen left behind to look after the land once the men have been drafted off to fight in the trenches of the First World War. 

Visually, it's a beautiful movie. The countryside, portrayed in different lights and different seasons, is a character in its own right. The director is not afraid to move slowly, lingering on the ends of scenes, allowing us to gaze. The colour palette is striking, and the recurrence of that trademark green/blue, against the grey stone houses, or the brown and tawny-yellow fields, is nothing short of magical: a door, a shutter, an apron, a headscarf, a dress, a shawl, a piece of the night sky...

If the countryside is a character, then what animates that character is labour: the back-breaking manual work that farming in that era required. Milking cows, mucking out stables, splitting logs, making butter, making hay, ploughing, sowing, harvesting, threshing -- there's just no respite.

Men come and go, on leave from the terrible war; work practices change. But the land remains.


The photos in this post were taken in rural Brittany in 1993





The film focuses on a family. Hortense is the aging matriarch; Claude is her much less sprightly husband, Solange her daughter, and Marguerite a relative. As the men of the family briefly appear on leave, we meet the son-in-law, Clovis (who later becomes a prisoner of war), and two sons, Constant (later killed in action) and Georges. 

Two arrivals drive the plot.

Firstly, there's Francine, a hired hand from the "Assistance", the state body that takes charge of orphans. She's a good worker, willing to take on anything.  (In the film she's played by Iris Bry, who "was planning on a career in library science until a chance meeting with the film’s casting director changed everything". It's an awesome debut.)

Francine and Georges strike up a relationship. This puts Marguerite's nose out of joint, and makes Hortense anxious.

Secondly, the Americans arrive. They intrigue and tempt Solange, to her mother's growing chagrin. But they enrage Georges, who has had awful experiences at the front, and resents the spectacle of these fit, well-fed young men having fun with the local women, drinking the local alcohol, and generally horsing around.

When, on the way to the station after his leave, Georges sees an American soldier kissing Francine while purchasing some more of Claude's schnapps, he leaps to all the wrong conclusions. (As so often in plots, you wonder why people don't just TALK to each other... Get things out in the open. Give people an opportunity for explanations. Don't just assume...)

But Georges doesn't talk, or write. He does just assume. And in this leap of assumption, he is maliciously encouraged by Hortense, who sees the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, she can divert Georges's attention back to Marguerite and away from the penniless orphan (not penniless, actually, but Hortense doesn't know this); on the other, she can divert local attention from the scandal-raising Solange by blaming and dismissing the "hussy" Francine.

Francine protests, of course, the injustice of this move. But Hortense is implacable. Even when Francine later writes to tell her that she is pregnant by Georges, she does nothing to rectify matters. Francine takes another position, and goes off to have the baby.



By the final scene, dated 1920, Francine has bobbed her hair, and become a performer at a kind of cafe chantant. (Iris Bry does indeed have a delightful voice, very high and sweet. She could easily pursue a career as a singer, I would have thought.)

Francine, ironically, sings in this scene Amours Fragiles (Fragile Loves), an 1899 song with words by Alexandre Trebitsch and music by Harry Fragson. The lilting lyrics belie the cynical chorus, which certainly speaks to her experience:

Loves are fragile;
Vows are easy.
Like little children's toys,
Don't look at what's inside.
You think they are really solid,
But alas they are empty.
At the slightest shock that comes along to hurt them
Crack, that's it, loves are broken...

Yes, flaky, judgemental Georges, she's talking to YOU...

There's a version of the song here, recorded by Fred Gouin in 1929.

I've already talked about the beautiful Chanson des Bles d'Or, which I first heard in this movie, but while we're briefly diverted onto song, I'll just also mention the very curious lullaby that Francine sings. It turns out this is by George H. Clutsam, a Sydney-born composer and songwriter, who after World War I, "increasingly turned to lighter music, much of it in imitation of the Negro songs of America's south". Among the products of that era was this, his most popular tune, whose title -- Ma Curly Headed Babby -- certainly makes contemporary ears, tuned in to charges of cultural appropriation, wince a bit. There are various incarnations of the lyrics in English, some more racially obnoxious than others (Paul Robeson sings one of the more neutral versions  here). The French lyrics don't seem to have any of the racial overtones, and there's a version here that was recorded by baritone Bruno Laplante when he was still a boy soprano...



But back to Francine. Performing on stage, she seems happy; she's obviously capable, strong, and independent. We see an unidentified man appear to take an interest in her. She smiles. Then it's the end.

Reading some reviews after watching, particularly this one by Martha Hannah, I became aware, firstly, that the movie was based on Ernest Perochon's 1924 novel Les Gardiennes; and secondly, that many Americans film-goers didn't much care for the way their war effort had been portrayed...

It's worth quoting this section at length:

"If Americans bring with them the prosperity of modern life, they also inject the germ of moral dissolution into the very heartland of la France profonde. Or so Hortense fears. When she comes to suspect that Solange is allowing herself to be seduced by the 'Sammies' who congregate near Sérigny, Hortense acts quickly and decisively... That Francine is entirely innocent is beside the point... Francine loses her job, finds refuge in the household of a war widow, and resolves to raise her son on her own.  All because of the Americans...

"In its portrayal of Georges’s animosity towards the newly-arrived Americans, Les Gardiennes is well grounded in historical reality.  As the postal censors observed in 1918, it was only when the Americans moved into combat positions in the summer of 1918 that French soldiers abandoned their scorn and disdain in favor of praise and appreciation for their new allies. It is, however, a theme most likely to generate a visceral reaction in American audiences:  how dare the film-makers (not to mention the poilus [WWI combatants]) not recognize and applaud the invaluable role the Americans played in the war?  How can they be so ungrateful? For an audience persuaded -- as a recent New York Times article reiterates -- that the Americans 'won the war' these scenes of American indolence and French acrimony sit uncomfortably with received wisdom. This, at least, is a lesson I took away from a screening of the film this summer.  I had been invited to lead a post-screening discussion of the film with an audience of well-read and well-traveled Boulder locals. They were thoughtful, curious, and -- in the main -- appreciative of the film. They were, however, anything but appreciative of how the film depicted the doughboys of the American Expeditionary Force. No one left the film with an undiluted admiration for Hortense, her valiant efforts to preserve the family patrimony notwithstanding; but neither did anyone try to understand why a generation of young French men, who endured heavier casualties than any of their allies, whose homeland was devastated by war, and whose womenfolk were, they feared, all too susceptible to the Sammies’ allure, would have felt bitterness and resentment towards these late-arriving allies."

Amazing, no? This constantly distorted self-image explains so very much...





I also learnt from this review that the film had departed from the book in some notable ways.

So next I read the book.

Perochon's novel, according to a preface by Eric Kocher-Marboeuf, is the only literary testimony from the period between the wars to deal with the role played by women in keeping France's farms working while the men were fighting.

Because it can introduce and develop more characters and themes, the novel probably offers a clearer depiction than the movie of what it meant to work the land when labour was scarce and basic supplies were erratic.

The first few chapters portray the struggles of the Misanger family and those related to them. Here, three sons and a son-in-law are away at the war. Left behind are "la Grande Hortense", peremptory, indefatigable, always conscious of the duty of those left behind to be "bonnes gardiennes". With her is "le pere Claude", who seems more worn-out than he does in the film, always longing just for a bit of peace and quiet.  On the neighbouring farm there's Solange. She is only ever inches away from giving up the farm, and her "weakness of soul" is a humiliation to her indomitable mother: "Daughter, there's no room under my roof for cowards." Ouch... And there's Lea, the marsh-dwelling daughter-in-law. Her little boy exemplifies not only the band of unruly village children whose mothers are too tired or too sad to discipline them, but more generally the social decline that has accompanied the disruption of the war. The third chapter paints a picture of terrible discouragement. People are starting to sell up. This is a bleaker picture than the movie offers.

But by the sixth chapter, things are looking up, at least slightly, for the farmers. Prices are rising, and machines are becoming available.

The fourth chapter sees the arrival of Francine, the seventh her first meeting with Georges.

Marguerite (who in the book is a cousin, and together with her younger brother, has taken over the family bakery business when their father leaves for the war) is a "good custodian", Hortense tells Georges, and this is the highest accolade she can bestow on anyone.







The American soldiers make their appearance about half-way through the book: "They brought, in incredible quantities, everything you could imagine, even things that were apparently useless, and they set themselves up in the country as if the war was going to last another ten years." The ones who roll up at Serigny are always in a rush, but also always ready to make themselves at home. They are big consumers, paying from funds that seem inexhaustible. The locals are baffled that they go to the inn not to spend time talking, but simply to get drunk, and then to fight.

They're certainly in a privileged position. Some will "return to their country without having heard the noise of battle". So they have sufficient leisure to pay attention to the local women. Little events are organized, and these cause some resentment: "Mothers overwhelmed with grief, overwhelmed with tiredness and anxiety, mothers whose last sons were fighting, were shocked, and murmured against the carefree joy of these healthy men with no work to do." More discreetly but unstoppably, however, relationships continue to form.

Then Georges returns for a second period of leave. Marguerite, neglected, is miserable. Francine, courted, is ecstatic. Hortense, not sure what's going on, grows ill with suspicion.

The Americans represent a constant irritation for Georges, who seems to see them only as tempters of women. He seems to regard Francine's failure to mention them in her letters as somehow duplicitous. Seeing a boatload of Americans, accompanied by some of the local young women, he says bitterly: "Our girls don't waste their time while we're getting ourselves killed for them."

The women have to be guardians of so much: homes, lands, resources, savings, ways of life... And of morals, or so we're given to believe by Hortense, whose guardianship of the good name her daughter's behaviour constantly threatens to drag in the mud finally leads her to commit that massive injustice towards Francine.

But the book allows us to see that this injustice has been a long time in the making. Solange, to distract attention from her own slightly loose understanding of marital fidelity, has been dropping negative ideas about Francine into Hortense's always suspicious ears. When -- on the night path to the station with Georges, his leave over -- he and his mother see an American leaving the farm where Solange and Francine reside (a slightly subtler version than the one in the movie), Hortense strikes.

As in the movie, Georges coldly instructs his mother to dismiss Francine. He starts to correspond with Marguerite again. He responds to none of Francine's letters, including the one in which she tells him (not Hortense) that she is pregnant.



If Hortense's story revolves around her multiple guardianship duties, Francine's revolves around her quest for connection, and whereas the book is able to fully develop this theme, it doesn't emerge nearly so strongly in the movie. Francine feels acutely that she is all alone in the world, and longs for people who are "hers". It's lack of belonging that has driven her from employment to employment; it's lack of belonging that drives her to Georges.

When the two women's motivations clash, monumentally, both suffer, although the one who comes off worse in the end is not Francine.

She stays strong. She falters once, alone and lost on the waters of the marsh. But she pulls herself together. She stops regretting Georges. And she looks forward to the birth of her baby. Finally, she will have someone in the world who is really hers, someone who will love her and defend her. She has ideas and plans. "Nothing scared her any more; the paths of the future opened before her bathed in summer light."

She keeps her pregnancy a secret until it is time to move to the new situation facilitated for her by the kind people from the "Assistance", and we last see her heading for the train, bags in hand. She runs into Hortense, who guesses that she is pregnant. But the younger woman brooks no pity for her circumstances. She neither accuses Hortense nor expresses any comforting words of forgiveness when she acknowledges her betrayal. She is above it all. Francine's eyes are "full of bold happiness, like the eyes of a visionary dreamer".

This, to me, is a better ending than that speculative cafe-concert role.  Hannah argues that the film-maker wanted to avoid the novel's portrayal of motherhood as Francine's destiny. But I'm not convinced that is the way Perochon tells it. The young woman has built up a nice little nest-egg over the years, which permits her to imagine not always being in service, but perhaps starting a business or some other enterprise (so the caf'conc is not necessarily ruled out, but we have no specific information). While grateful for the baby, the person striding off down that road arouses admiration on multiple levels, and doesn't sound like someone who sees herself solely as a mother.



Having finished the book, I re-watched the film, which is kinder to Hortense and Solange than the book is.

In the film, Solange comes out relatively "innocent". She's tempted by the Americans, but mindful of her absent husband. In the book, she is devious and disloyal. Perochon obviously disapproves of her morals, and shows her little sympathy.

In the film, Hortense is gnawed by guilt about what she has done to Francine. But once the war is over, even though the family has started quarrelling about the distribution of land, she exudes a calm that is not exactly happy, but not unhappy either.

In the book, we are confronted much more starkly with the terrible price Hortense has paid to keep the agricultural show on the road all those years. She has become thin and ill. The oft-repeated words of Claude, whose end (in the book) is hastened by an accident for which he blames her, reverberate in her ears: "It's your fault, Hortense! You'll be the death of us all!" While regarding the sacrificing of Francine as inevitable, the act nevertheless weighs on her. Clovis, her son-in-law, returns from the war, and though grateful for her hard work, is very clear about the new order of things: "Old people and young people, that never works too well, you know that. The old people want to give the orders, and it's not their turn any more..." All Hortense's energy has gone into dominating people, and there is no-one left who pities her. In the final paragraphs we see her alone in her home, the photo of her dead son her only comfort.

I'm not sure quite what to make of the book's Hortense. Is it a slightly sexist swipe at the unnaturalness of women's leadership, that was made necessary only by national emergency, but is not the natural order of things, and therefore only likely to lead to unhappiness? Or is it just a very credible portrayal of the physical and emotional cost of being a "gardienne"?

I don't often take the trouble to compare books and movies in this way. I rush on, eager to watch or read the next thing. But to spend more time observing these characters, as they operate in their different environment, so unfamiliar to me, and to spend more time thinking about how they are portrayed, in the two different media, through eyes that are looking out on the world at almost a century's distance, was certainly enriching.