How Green Was My Valley (Ford, 1941)

How Green Was My Valley (Ford, 1941) - #TSPDT #355

The story of a generation in a family of miners in a valley in Wales.

The film manages to successfully immerse me in the world of the simple miners trying to cope with novelties such as unions or education. The humble and simple men and women are a likeable bunch, well displayed in their disposition to break out in song at pretty much any occasion.

It definitively is a very melodramatic film but to my great surprise it doesn't culminate in sweet happy-ending, but a quiet, somber mood of reflection and after-thought, which felt like a great thing after some of the more kitschy moments. In a way it reminded me a bit of "I remember Mama" although the story is more literate, and the confrontations are quite over the top, as far as there are any. It's sort of a Hollywood kitchen-sink drama, all fluffy and dirty at the same time. But I was able to enjoy it very much.

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