I have on a beautiful movie, Le Château de Ma Mère, “My Mother’s Castle”, sequel to La Gloire de Mon Père, “My Father’s Glory” (which I watched last night). These are made from the book of Marcel Pagnol about his childhood memories. It has been years since I have seen them. Good movies for adults and perhaps late teens.
These are very stylized, as they ought to be for (happy) childhood memories. They are excellent period pieces. My French is just good enough to follow them. Happily the French is simple while poetic. I will have to watch it again later without the subtitles.
There are some good exchanges between the atheistic world view and the Catholic. 
Also, in the scene at Christmas, Marcel’s father had a good exchange with Jules, the uncle by marriage who told them all that they had been with him at Midnight Mass. They also had a table set with the “13 desserts”, which, apparently, are traditional for Christmas. There is a good scene about l‘absinthe, an icon of the time, and illegal for decades in Europe. I believe it still is in the USA. And there is a rather detestable girl, sadly a victim of lousy parenting.
And there are lots of birds, and (in the first movie) the local priest who takes interest in them, including the mighty bartavelle!
The two movies develop how children move by stages from childish understanding and from fantasy to a sometimes sadder, and sometimes even happier, reality of human frailty and our foibles, with the result that they are at the same time sweet and bittersweet. They are about how childhood experiences leave impressions that endure for a lifetime. I find these movies quite charming, perhaps in part because they remind me of my own summers in Montana and Wyoming, terrain not unlike the garrigue of Provence.
