Original subtitles

Grandfather, will I have a horse? Don't you have one?

A horse?

We're too poor for one like that, but we have the horse of pride.

Where is he?

Here.

There you are.

HORSE OF PRIDE

This film is dedicated to the Breton people of the Bigouden region.

We're too poor for one like that, but we have the horse of pride.

Thus spoke my grandfather Alain.

And my father Pierre-Alain may have been thinking of that

going from the Kerveillant farm in Plozevet to the town of Pouldreuzic

to marry Anne-Marie le Goff, my mother.

On his head he carried most of his wordly goods: 24 shirts.

My grandmother had harvested and prepared the hemp

then taken it to the weaver, to be ready for my parents' wedding.

It was a marriage of the poor.

My father had invited his friends from Plozevet.

The Pouldreuzic girls found they danced better than the local boys.

Plozevet boys are better dancers.

They dance better than you.

It seems our girls prefer the strangers!

It seems we're not as good as they are.

So ended the first day of the wedding.

There was a second day.

And a third day.

Not until the third evening would the couple be left alone,

after the "milk-and-garlic soup" ceremony, a symbol of life's bitter-sweetness.

Here's the soup.

Strength for the Holy Ghost.

May he do his good work.

May your days be as sweet as the milk.

And may the garlic warn you to expect disappointments.

Their new armoire.

What for?

To marry the groom's shirts to the bride's petticoats.

And there it stays.

To your happiness, Pierre-Alain.

Go on, be nice.

Get in line.

You in front, you're stronger.

Follow him. Give your all.

To the one who does best.

Are the roots for us?

Enough for all winter.

Master, what about me?

Foreman, when not with my horse, be at my side.

Good. Begin.

You all did well, but he did best.

Foreman, you get the largest soup bowl.

He did the most this morning.

You were next best, then you.

To each according to his merit.

I'd give the horse my bowl.

Good. Fatten him up for the April Fair.

No one can make a horse piss the way he can, so it won't bloat.

God bless him.

My father worked on a farm.

As he was best worker, he ate more.

Naturally, he was the foreman and he took care of the horse.

He led it to work, to fairs, to glory

and to its bath.

The annual ritual bath took place in the Bay of Audierne.

Perhaps the sea would stop being our enemy.

We kept our backs turned to the sea.

We were of the earth.

The earth was our only happiness, blending its good odor with buckwheat flour.

Make way for the others.

Save some of your strength for me.

Come, part of the night belongs to me.

Stop, Pierre-Alain.

Are you forgetting me so soon?

The baby in the Nativity painted by Georges de la Tour, which is in the Rennes art museum,

was unknown in the region, but I was about to be born and would resemble him.

I would also resemble a bundle of straw,

like those lined up on a layer of broom in box-beds to serve as padding.

One of my grandfathers was making my cradle.

Neighbor, would you get Jeanne-Marie?

The midwife? Has your time come?

I think so.

She'll take good care of you.

Your time hasn't come yet.

Then I'll finish my work.

I don't know about that.

It's not good.

Better fetch the doctor.

The doctor?

Yes, the best one, the district doctor.

The one who comes only when it's serious?

The one that speaks to his horse, who answers him?

Bijou, have you a heart?

Yes, doctor.

We shall gamble in Macao. And make our fortune there.

The moon will be square. Seen from junks carrying cacao.

-To the left, doctor. -To the left.

March!

So his name is Pierre.

My mother liked Pierre, but my father insisted on Paul.

Finally, they named me Joseph.

I'll call you "the son of the King of Hibernia."

As sure as I make wooden sabots, I foresee glory and honors for you.

Pierre the Magnificent!

I'll nail another brass rose to your new cradle.

The family cradle had been lent to neighbors long ago.

It now served a different brood.

My grandfather wouldn't let me lie in hen droppings.

My cradle sparkled.

Godfather, the candy?

Yes, hurry. This angel can't wait.

Sugar coated almonds from Quimper. Very good.

You're the aunt, you carry them.

We're taking your little one. Be good!

How's his appetite?

He's an ogre! And wait until the priest puts salt on his mouth!

When can I show myself in public?

Soon, when the taint of the fault is gone.

The fault?

You have eaten of the apple.

You still smell of the apple.

It has been like that since the Garden of Eden.

Don't worry, you're fine on that arm.

The left arm is for Satan, not for you.

Where's my godson?

Could you have left him behind?

He's here!

He's been found!

In a few days, it was my mother's turn to go to church,

her first time out in public since my birth

Marriage had granted her the right to be a mother,

but certain age-old taboos, an obscure feeling of guilt,

made our women feel disgraced until they returned to church.

Like all women who "had something new," she dressed between Sunday best and everyday clothes.

A mourning cloak with silver clasps, the hood up, to hide her face.

Go in peace, Marie.

Well! How's the family?

Very well, couldn't be better.

Has your appetite come back?

Yes, but I couldn't come by.

Shall I add some crab meat?

Yes. I've had visitors. There's almost nothing left.

That happens sometimes.

I've been so busy this past week.

So I've heard.

You must come have coffee.

Of course.

Don't cry, my darling.

Little Pierre is fine.

That's good.

Little Pierre is taking a nap.

Is he covered?

How's my son? Did you feed him?

Ludovic fed him, he drank it all.

Fine. You're good boys.

I was happy, I had enough to eat.

Our house seemed filled with gods and silence.

But outside! What of the others, the adults?

Those who had to find money, without losing dignity.

Pull!

The life of the poor is like those plays

that critics call bad melodramas.

There was widespread misery in the Bigouden region.

Everyone was haunted by the fear of meeting it

at a turn in the road, in the form of a wild dog

yellow teeth bared in a snarl.

It was called the Bitch of the World.

I have nothing left, my friend, nothing.

Don't be ashamed.

The bad time will end.

You won't always be humiliated.

When the Bitch of the World leaps on you, it never barks.

You hear? The Bitch of the World.

The Bitch of the World.

We'll never kill it!

But we can scare her, then she'll go away.

I'm leaving here. The Bitch won't get me.

Where will you go?

To a better planet.

Tomorrow, I'm taking a train at Quimper.

The Bitch won't let go of you.

You'll become one of her dogs.

I still have my gun. I'll sell it.

I'll go far away.

Where can I go?

Where you asked, as far as possible.

Toward the sun.

One way?

Yes, one way.

You change trains in Paris and Rome, then Sicily.

Sicily.

He became one of the Bitch of the World's dogs.

The Bitch, the yellow-fanged misery.

The only way to bury her is to dig,

To dig her grave ever deeper, with your hoe.

The men in my family knew that.

So did my mother, rising at dawn each day.

In my childhood realm, any princess

would have fought to have the lace my mother made.

Our cupboards were bare.

What a house of whistles!

The whistling of wind in a void.

Whistling on an empty stomach shows you're unafraid.

You hear that, little Pierre?

I've rented out the west room.

In the loft?

A lodger?

Jack-of-all-trades.

Jeannot? But he drinks!

Jack of too many trades!

"And master of none," I know. But these days...

Is that you, Jeannot?

Don't smell its tail, or you will know intoxication.

Jeannot was unpredictable, dangerous and good.

Good for nothing, and dirty too.

Damn him! To have that in my house...

You must get rid of that good-for-nothing.

Can't even pay his rent!

I know, father.

No one likes him, no one wants him, except you.

The neighbors say we live in a shithouse now.

He was listening!

Death, who is called the Ankou or simply Him

the one who takes you to the other world

took Jeannot.

Grandfather shed a few tears. He would have wept for Judas.

The field across the way, and the road,

and our house, all began to smell good again.

I hope Jeannot died a real death,

not the "little death" of Corentin Calvez.

I'm too busy to listen to your tales.

It's not a tale!

The skeleton with the scythe, the harvester of bodies

passed through the fields of Corentin Calvez.

He was careless, that's all.

I need chicory. Go to the grocer's.

And tell your grandfather to come home. It's late.

It happened on the eve of All Souls' Day.

Corentin Calvez, remember him?

Had a little farm down at World's End.

That's right.

He was on top of a pile of straw, tying it down with baling wire

weighting it with rocks, because of the wind

howling in from the sea, threatening to blow it away.

It was dusk.

Suddenly, he is exhausted. He falls.

Someone hears his cry.

They come and pick him up.

They carry him to his bed.

All night, he is watched over by his family.

All night, he is there before them, as though dead.

Unconscious.

But that same evening

just when they were putting him in his bed

Corentin, pale and haggard, unable to speak

entered the house of my cousin Jean.

They sat him down.

I'm cold.

I'll get you a strong drink.

I'm cold.

The Ankou has looked at me through his empty sockets.

The Ankou came to take me to the land of the dead.

I'm cold.

He's there. Someone give me your hand.

A warm hand.

He's coming. Hear his cart creaking?

And the voices, singing the hymn of Hell. Why Hell?

Purgatory, but not Hell. Hold me!

And his fingernails dug into my cousin's hand until it bled.

We don't hear anything, Corentin.

Hold me!

They're gone. The cart's gone too.

I'm thirsty. I'll have that strong drink now.

Thank you. Thank you all.

Yet Corentin Calvez hadn't budged from his bed

back there, at home.

But they had all seen him.

They were all witness to the little death of Corentin Calvez.

He was dead and not dead? There and not there?

I tell you what I know.

Of course, I don't believe it. I'm a republican.

I believe it when you tell it.

We all do, when you tell it.

Me, too, when I tell it.

Maybe it's the chicory?

Or milk from a sick cow.

Maybe it's the seagull that died on your doorstep.

Or the story of the man with the moustache.

A cart was heard last night.

The Ankou!

My head aches and his stomach is swollen.

The water of the Fountain will cure him.

It cured my toothache last month.

There's my aunt. We're nearly there.

Her cows drink the miracle water.

They give twice as much milk.

Come and say hello to me.

Notre Dame de Pistigou, cure us of our ailments.

Pierrot, your sabots!

Little Pierre, they're new.

The Virgin only cures good boys.

Where else can we go?

To see St. Philibert. He's the best for the colic.

Others also considered St. Philibert a benefactor.

He was the distiller's favorite saint.

What's that smell?

Happiness, my boy.

St. Philibert adds a hint of diarrhea to the apple.

Later you'll understand. Good odors tighten the thighs.

Let's go, Pierre.

We're going to thank Jesus.

Jesus showed us that even Gods must bear their crosses.

Well, soiled britches, feeling better?

Ready to ride your horse?

Can the horse of pride see the black horse?

The black horse shall meet the horse of pride.

Is that the carrot train?

It's not carrying vegetables.

That useless train is carrying seafood.

The black horse was moody and sulky, often tired.

And always steaming! But it spelled escape.

It carried as many dreams as the Trans-Siberian.

Doesn't it stop?

No, it mustn't lose speed.

It has a fever from going uphill. Let's go home.

There's the women's council.

Listen. You'll hear all about our failings,

and rarely about our merits.

If you need a spanking, it's decided there.

Are you listening?

You're asleep? Sleep, my little man.

Young Alanou tore up Le Guellec's pea patch.

What did my son do?

Le Guellec's pea patch and Big Marie's raspberries.

At the rectory wall, under the very nose of Jesus.

Not true! My son is a lamb of the Lord.

Your son is the leader of the gang!

Repeat that!

The one on his iron horse who sees and hears nothing.

His father is passing by. If he hears about it, he won't like it.

I'd like to see any man interfere here.

Let him come if he wants the paddle.

Men and women seem to live on different planets.

How is it that they can't get along without each other?

Perhaps they tell each other the best stories

and so are rid of their own stories.

Listening to the stories of others can set you free.

My uncle Guillaume knew that secret.

He could keep everyone awake all night.

The horses were put into the boats head to tail

with wine kegs between their legs, to steady them.

The wine came from the region of Nantes.

It was acid and sharp as a sword.

A wine to drown memories.

The sailors only remembered that they came from across the sea.

That's how a Breton became the King of England.

Wait.

One winter morning, I was walking to school in Plozevet.

It had snowed all night.

Passing the Kergivig farm

I saw what looked like a freshly dug grave and I went closer.

It was my father, the sabot-maker, stiff as a corpse.

I went for help.

The farmers brought his body back to our house.

They laid my father on a bench near the fire.

He thawed out.

I wish you all a good night.

That was the second time he came back to life.

Hello, grandfather. Where's Mama?

What a question! In the fields, of course.

What are you thinking of?

I hear your bowels singing. Go eat your soup.

An empty sack can't stand up.

Most close your bed.

Eat.

It's not too much for you.

Here's our "man of letters."

It's for your newspaper subscription.

What's new?

I can't deliver this letter to Marie Le Reste.

Bad news, friend?

"Corentin's little girl passed away the other night."

"The doctors say it was inevitable."

I can't read her that.

No, you can't.

It's best if she learns some other way.

From all of us, from the wind.

Yes.

I liked the postman.

Like the stationmaster and the teacher, he spoke French well.

Best of all, he could talk to birds.

One morning on the road, I saw him charming them.

Enjoy my song. Tomorrow there'll be wind.

Ask the moon.

The wind is the master of the region.

He growls, he sings, he douses us with rain.

He sweeps the coast and the countrysides.

And whenever it pleases him, he will

make the light as fresh as on the first day of creation.

We'll be washed inside from head to toe.

Our strength will be renewed.

Here.

All right. Jacques against Loic.

Eric against Didier. Me against you. And you be the referee.

Your sabot.

We'll nail on some tin.

From the cannery?

That'll please Notre Dame de Penhors.

Watch out, here they come.

Here they come.

Nails weren't our only pleasure.

Buttons were best of all.

We had no school on Thursdays, so that was button exchange day.

There were all kinds: horn, metal, glass, multi-colored.

The oldest, the prettiest.

One Breton was worth at least two French buttons.

Are you playing?

I have no more.

No more? What about on your jacket?

You won them all? I sew them all on?

All.

Can I have this one?

Okay.

The adults, like all poor people who play lotteries, played for money.

But Breton quoits required skill rather than luck.

Breton "champagne," a mixture of lemonade and rum

left the field and any lost coins to us.

I liked quoits more than nine pins.

Each pin was named. Father, mother, grandfather, daughter.

They seemed to be destroying the family

all three generations that lived under one roof.

But they were good people.

They wouldn't have hurt a fly, but a certain bug stung them sometimes.

A touch of madness? Letting off steam?

Some sadness? A need for consolation?

A little more champagne?

Drunk again. I can't stand it anymore.

I should have married the tavern keeper. I'd be rich.

There's one who's sneaking away.

It's my husband. Leave him to me, he's mine.

All the same!

Marie-Jeanne lived near the rector's field.

A bitter place, smelling of horses and daisies.

The Ankou!

I saw Death. The Ankou looked at me.

You should marry, Marie-Jeanne.

Your blood is playing tricks. You're seeing things.

No, I saw him on the wall of the old chapel.

Let's go see.

All Saints' Day is coming, Marie-Jeanne.

Then the Day of the Dead. It's calling me.

Come sleep at our house.

No, walk me home to the rector's field.

We waited until dark.

Help!

What's happening?

Let's go.

Our funeral service shocked people, but we weren't caught.

Our peasant parents didn't like the sea with its ebb and flow.

They couldn't swim and were loath to undress.

The Earthly Paradise is too far off.

And they preferred meat to fish, food for Lent and Fridays.

But I just wanted to conquer the ninth wave.

The hardest one, which scared my mother.

If you come home drowned, you'll catch it from your father!

Call him.

Come back!

But the ninth wave lured me on.

How else could I become a man?

You are going to catch it from me.

I'm waiting for the ninth wave.

What?

The ninth wave.

It's difficult to become a man.

Remember, no tobacco is better than dried male catkin.

How do you recognize it?

Easy. It burns the longest.

Well, I'll have to try it.

You see, my boy, when you know nature

the trees, the animals, the flowers,

the water and the wind, then smoking is easy.

You had to be born here and not come from elsewhere with an impossible name.

Like Paul. No one knew where he came from.

With his foreign clothes and that fancy toy.

We had always ignored him before.

So you're back again.

Look at him!

He's disguised. Going to a masquerade.

Look at his haircut!

Those clothes!

Now he's one of us.

The Bitch of the World was showing her fangs

so the women worked double, night and day.

They did the work of two.

What's the matter?

It's Yann Cariou.

He was killed three weeks ago.

Yann Cariou?

I don't know how to tell his Jeanne.

We'll go with you.

You loved him.

Everyone loved him.

The redhead sold her hair in Pont-Croix.

It doesn't seem possible.

She had nothing else.

He only left a crown for her head-dress.

Did he pay her much?

No, because her hair is red.

It's not worth as much as blonde or brunette hair.

How much is this one?

Two francs a meter.

And this one?

One franc sixty.

I'll come back after the Pont-Croix Fair.

My hair is a treasure, they tell me.

I need no other jewel to adorn me.

Who will get my hair?

Perhaps a bald man, my beauty.

You'll make someone happy.

A handsome dragoon or cuirassier, perhaps.

You have thick hair.

Hold your head up. You weren't making love.

My hair is a treasure.

Verdun.

Douaumont.

They're French.

What about the Germans?

They're worse.

They have a high opinion of themselves.

Oh, our deputy.

What an honor for us.

Anne-Marie, Mr. Le Bail, our deputy.

Is he studying hard?

Are you learning French?

He's not very eager.

You must learn French, my boy.

Your uncle went to war unable to read or write.

I have good news for you.

He is now an officer.

The Republic educates everyone.

Is there any news of my son?

I was going to ask you.

Nothing in the last month.

And he always writes me.

Are we ever going to win this war?

The Republic must not die, Mr. Le Goff.

It's up to us.

We Reds must stand fast, shoulder to shoulder.

I'm seeing all our friends.

I want you to know we are the strongest.

Are you the Red leader?

Thank you, but I won't drink until the Victory. I made a vow.

I'm counting on you too.

Here is the true Bible.

What about the catechism?

They go together.

I know it as well as any White.

So the Whites can't shame us.

The Republic knows all.

Where is the Republic's church?

At school, my boy.

Goodbye, Mr. Le Goff.

Little one.

Red dog!

Red! Redhead!

I don't have red hair.

No, but they have white asses.

They are white asses, and they are all around us.

Never forget that we are Reds and on the right side.

The teachers will return more red than ever, and make you a colonel.

A higher rank than your uncle's.

And my father?

No news is good news, Anne-Marie.

As for you, you learn French.

In Paris, you'll only hear French being spoken.

When you know French, you'll want to see things and go places.

Other places.

Like Mr. Le Bail, who makes speeches in Paris.

If you only speak Breton, my boy,

you'll be on a short tether, like a cow tied to a stake.

Before, I went to church, played with my friends and liked them all.

Now, the arrival of this man had changed everything.

What I felt might have been fear.

I saw c'hwede this morning.

Say "I saw a lark this morning."

A lark.

It is better to educate

No, no. Speak French, children.

the child,

than to give him

possessions.

Why is the street in front of the school called Shit Street?

Because it's a Red school and the only one, so we must come here.

It is called Shit Street. Why?

What is the real reason?

Because it's muddy.

Yes, and here you will be cleaned up in every way

to be worthy of her.

What's wrong, Jacques?

Stand up.

Tell me.

I don't know, sir.

That's a handsome jacket. Nice buttons.

It's made from my uncle Jean's uniform.

His uncle was killed at Tahure.

Be proud, Jacques. You're wearing a hero's clothes.

Class dismissed.

We've heard from Papa.

"Marie, all is well."

"I learned to sew, to put a stripe on my sleeve."

"Fence in the Long Stone field."

"Soon, when I come back, we'll put a horse in there."

"Soon."

"I made a ring for you, Marie, from a brass cartridge."

"Does the boy know how to read yet?"

"He will see our victories in the newspapers."

"Love to you all."

Soon doesn't mean tomorrow, nor even the day after.

The war was taking its time.

I was promoted too, at school.

I was studying History.

Who can tell me what a menhir is?

Louis is going to tell us what a menhir is.

Well, Louis?

Straighten up. Silence!

Silence, I said.

You may not speak Breton in class.

You must pass your examination in French.

Dactylographier, to type.

Pierre-Jacques.

Conjugate, in all tenses and moods, the verb dactylographier.

That I dactylographiasse, that you dactylographiassiez.

Black dog shit from a white dog.

Who were you saying that for?

I got you that time.

We're not in class now. We're all friends.

Why don't you sing a nicer tune?

Our country isn't only our region.

It goes all the way to the Rhine.

It's a big country.

Where are you going, solider of France?

Equipped and ready for battle.

There are all sorts of games.

We were beginning to open our eyes.

The most interesting events took place outside of school.

What is it?

It's Charlie Chaplin.

Pierre-Jacques, time for bed.

Tell me another story about our ancestors.

Of course.

My grandfather Alain was the groom, farmhand and footman

at the Guilguiffen chateau in Landudec.

The chateau was ruled over by the Marquis Michel de Guilguiffen.

Alain, I'm having guests this evening.

Please dress accordingly.

Yes, Michel.

Alain?

I hear that you bought a grandfather clock.

Yes, Michel.

So the day you have a few extra ecus, you squander them for a clock?

I want to know the time without waiting to hear the Angelus.

Wasting your meager resources on a useless object.

It's a handsome clock, perfect where it is.

Where it is!

Your house doesn't belong to you, and neither does the time.

Some day they will, Michel.

You want to join the bourgeoisie.

You want to swagger, be a windmill peacock.

You do not rule over my clock, Monsieur le Marquis.

And if anyone else had said half as much to me

I'd have spit between his eyes.

Spit between my eyes, Alain Le Goff.

And call me Michel, as before.

We'll forget all this, Alain.

Nothing has happened.

I'll go see your clock

to hear it sound the hour.

Light them at the last moment, when we hear the entrance bell ring.

Yes, Michel.

I'll never let anyone walk over me.

Never.

To each his place and his dignity.

Did we win the war?

We won this one, but there is always a war to be won.

Each day is a war.

Each day is an adventure.

A single day of our lives is more rich and full than a thick book.

You can't see.

Can you see everything now, up on your horse?

It's better than any horse.