The Two of Us, by Claude Berri, is one of the most perfectly beautiful films I’ve seen. During world war II, an eight-year-old Jewish boy is sent to live in the country with his landlady’s parents. The story is based on Berri’s memories of his childhood, and it has the beautiful glow of a child’s perspective filtered through memory. With the ease that children approach friendship, Claude takes to Pepe, the old man. And Pepe loves him back, not realizing, as he weaves frightening tales of Jews as villains, that the boy himself is Jewish. There’s such a simplicity and grace to the film – it has a feeling of effortlessness and honesty – that the emotional impact is powerful and immediate, and it took me a while to realize just how intelligent it is. Pepe, as played by the incomparable Michel Simon, is so human – so wonderful in some ways, and so flawed in others. Without moralizing or judging, Berri provides a vivid illustration that prejudice is born of ignorance. In the context of the war going on around them – tragic news on the radio, threatening posters around the town – Pepe’s bigotry, which seems innocent because he’s so sweet, takes on a looming dangerous shadow.

And it takes place in the French countryside, in summer! They eat outside and drink copious bottles of homemade wine! They chase each other and their elderly dog around gorgeous fields and meadows! And, as you can see in the trailer, there’s a lovely and intriguing loaf of bread on the table throughout most of the film. I decided to try to make this bread! I believe it’s called a couronne, because a bread of that name is made in Lyon, and I believe they’re in Lyon because that’s what the sign on the train said. To be honest, what I actually made was my version of a French baguette in circular form. I’ve long wanted to make bread that had this texture – chewy crispy on the outside, and not so finely crumbed on the inside. I think this turned out that way! It’s really good! And pretty! I read a bunch of different recipes, and then combined them in a fly-by-the-seat-of-my pants kind of way. But it seems to have worked, so I’ll tell you what I did step by step.

We had a Vegetable, french lentil, potato ragout with this, and it was a perfect meal.

Georges Delrue wrote the music to The Two of Us, and oddly enough, years ago I fell in love with a song he wrote for Jules et Jim called Brouillard. I set some super 8 footage to it a while back. So that’s what this is.
Continue reading →