Marcel Pagnol’s novel, Le temps des secrets is adapted into a movie by the French director Christophe Barratier on the screens since yesterday.

The charm of Provence

Shot in the Massif de l’Étoile near Marseille, “Le Temps des Secrets”, adapted of the Marcel Pagnol’s novel, recounts the writer’s childhood from July 1905. The young Marcel Pagnol has just completed his primary studies and returns to the scrubland with his family for the summer and its beloved hills, between Aubagne and Allauch. Christophe Barratier offers a reconstruction of the carefree childhood giving way to the time of the secrets of adolescence, while celebrating Provence. In this film, the character of Marcel discovers that adults too can lie, dissemble, misbehave and, like him, hide secrets. It is also the age of the first amorous emotions, those which capsize in a curious mixture of strength and fragility with a zest of ingratitude…

A free adaptation of the novel

This Time of Secrets is however a free adaptation of the novel : Christophe Barratier changed the plot by drawing on real anecdotes told by Marcel Pagnol in the other volumes of Memories of Childhood. With this Mediterranean setting and the melodious accents characteristic of the work of Marcel Pagnol, the spectator will find a charming change of scenery. Christophe Barratier is the director of the popular movie Les Choristes, but also of Faubourg 36 and La Nouvelle Guerre des Boutons. For his new movie, he chose to adapt Le Temps des Secrets, a novel published in 1960 by Marcel Pagnol. This is the third volume of Childhood Memories (which has four volumes) by the novelist. An autobiographical story already adapted for television in 2005.