When Soy and I were growing up in Canberra there was an excellent Arthouse cinema called Electric Shadows. No Canberra student household was complete without an Electric Shadows poster on the back of the toilet door, showing the listings for the coming months. In amongst those listings was, inevitably, a running of the Gerard Depardieu film “Jean de Florette” and its companion piece “Manon des Sources”. They would usually play back to back on a Sunday afternoon.
In the climax of Jean de Florette, Gerard Depardieu’s character, who is generally optimistic and forebearing, is cursing God for not sending rain to his farm. He raises his fists to the sky and shouts for God to remember that he is a hunchback. For years whenever something random has gone wrong around the house, be it a broken glass or a broken nail, Soy and I would to raise our hands to the sky and say, in an outrageous French accent, “Do you not know I am a ‘unchback?”
The other day Zac was in the back yard and he lost his ball over the fence. He raised his hands to the sky and shouted “Do you not know I am a ‘unchback?” It suddenly occurred to me that not only has Zac never seen the film Jean de Florette, but Gerard Depardieu does not deliver the line in an outrageous French accent, because the whole film is in French.
Last night Soy and I sat down to watch Jean de Florette again. It is beautiful and tragic and I cried even though I knew what was going to happen from the start. But I was a little apprehensive when I saw that Gerard Depardieu actually says “I am a hunchback! Have you forgotten? Do you think it is easy?” For years we have been misquoting poor Monsieur Jean.
Still, next time I hit my thumb with a hammer, I’m pretty sure I will still cry out “Do you not know I am a hunchback?”
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