Swindon Film Society has a fantastic and poignant film lined up later this month. The Guardians is Xavier Beauvois’s 2017 film set in the midst of First World War France.
On the Paridier farm the women grapple with the workload under the watchful eye and deft hand of Hortense, the family matriarch (Nathalie Baye). Most of their menfolk, including two of Hortense’s sons, are away at war. Reluctantly Hortense brings in an outsider, the orphan Francine (Iris Bry), to help her daughter Solange (Laura Smet) with the chores. With new tools, new skills, and strength from their independence, the women triumph over the land. But emotions are never far from the surface, especially when there is news from the Front.
With this film, Beauvois demonstrates how the Great War not only changed people’s relationships with each other, but how it altered the core of their relationship to their native land.
The film is showing at The Arts Centre on 20th November and is Certificate 15.
