Marius

Marius (2013) is a French drama you can watch online on iFILM — the first chapter of Marcel Pagnol's Marseille trilogy, directed by and starring Daniel Auteuil as old César.

The setting is the La Marine bar on Marseille's Old Port. César's son Marius (Raphaël Personnaz) pours drinks but keeps staring at the ships leaving the harbor; the sea pulls at him harder than anything. Fanny (Victoire Bélézy), a young woman selling shellfish on the quay, has loved him since childhood. When the aging, well-off Panisse asks for her hand, Marius has to choose between a berth on a departing vessel and the girl waiting on the dock.

Pagnol wrote the play in 1929, and Auteuil films it with no updates — the Provençal accents, the unhurried port life, the salt in the air. It's for viewers who like old-fashioned cinema about plain, large feelings and don't mind a slow tide. Stream Marius (2013) online on iFILM.