My Mother's Castle

My Mother's Castle (Le Château de ma mère, 1990) is a French drama you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Yves Robert. It is the second half of the autobiographical Marcel Pagnol adaptation, following directly from My Father's Glory — both films were released the same year. Philippe Caubère plays father Joseph, Nathalie Roussel is mother Augustin, and Julien Ciamaca plays young Marcel, with Jean Rochefort, Jean Carmet, and Georges Wilson among the supporting cast.

The Pagnol family's summer ritual — the long journey to their beloved Provençal cottage — gets a shortcut when the father discovers a path through private estates. Using it becomes a habit, then a risk. The estate gamekeeper starts paying attention, and what begins as a small family adventure carries a heavier weight by the end.

Pagnol wrote these memoirs late in life, and Robert's adaptation keeps the melancholy that lives inside the nostalgia — the awareness that the summers being described were already over before they could be understood. Stream My Mother's Castle (1990) online on iFILM.