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Turtles in Movies
 
Jean de Florette (1986)
 
Spoiler Alert !

Some of these pictures and descriptions may give away plot details that you might not want to know before watching the film.
 
Jean de Florette Jean de Florette Jean de Florette
  Jean de Florette  
The book Manon des Sources (Manon of the Spring) was made into two wonderful French films directed by Claude Berri. In part one, Jean de Florette, Manon is a little girl who moves with her family to a house in the French countryside where she keeps a pet tortoise or box turtle. We see it briefly a couple of times. It doesn't seem to mean much other than to show that Manon is fond of animals.

In part two, Manon of the Spring, Emmanuelle Beart plays Manon as a beautiful 18-year-old shepherdess, who you can see above, for no reason other than I'd rather look at Emmanuelle Beart than a tortoise. The grown-up Manon also likes to dance naked outdoors with her goats while playing the harmonica. I'll save that for my upcoming page "Dancing Naked With Goats in Movies." Stay tuned.

I can't tell what kind of tortoise is used here, but there aren't any native tortoises in France in the area where this was filmed, so it could be any pet trade species or maybe one of the southern European tortoises.