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::FILM NEWS::
LE Newsletter - February 2, 2012
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Monsieur Lazhar Review: When Truth Is Hard To Teach
Source:
www.thestar.com - By Peter Howell
Monsieur Lazhar
Starring Mohamed Fellag, Sophie Nélisse, Brigitte Poupart and
Danielle
Proulx. Written and directed by Philippe Falardeau. 94 minutes.
Opens Jan. 27 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. PG
(Jan 26, 2012) In
Monsieur Lazhar,
a distraught elementary school teacher hangs herself in her
Montreal classroom.
She did it “with her blue scarf from the big pipe on a Wednesday
night,” says 10-year-old Alice (Sophie Nélisse), who discovered
the body along with her more fragile classmate Simon (Émilien
Néron). Alice matter-of-factly reports the details of their
ghastly find in a presentation to fellow students.
Does this sound like the stuff of comedy? It is if you embrace
life as the engaging absurdity we pass through en route to
death’s boring finality, with many stops for both joy and
sadness along the way.
Monsieur Lazhar is made in this spirit. Based on a
one-person play by Quebec’s Évelyne de la Chenelière, there are
no heroes or villains in this transcendent film, a
TIFF prize-winner that has
just been named one of the five contenders for Best
Foreign-Language Film at next month’s
Academy Awards.
There are just adults and kids struggling with a reality shaded
by euphemisms, secrets and loss.
Starring the extraordinary Algerian actor Mohamed Fellag in the
title role, and featuring fresh young faces that Quebec
writer/director Philippe Falardeau excels at finding, this isn’t
just another tale of an idealistic teacher struggling with
fractious students, such as The Class or To Sir, with
Love.
It’s a tapestry of fraught relationships, weaving issues of
parental authority, social taboos and national boundaries.
Empathy comes through understanding, but it’s not easily
achieved. It never is.
Fellag’s Bachir Lazhar, an immigrant new to Montreal whose
status is still undetermined, arrives at the school shortly
after the teacher’s suicide. He’s read of the case in the
papers, but he’s no hearse chaser.
Sure, he needs a job, Lazhar tells the suspicious principal
(Danielle Proulx). But he loves children, and he thinks he can
help.
Lazhar has had 19 years of experience teaching in war-torn
Algeria, his homeland. He understands suffering; exactly how
much, we shall discover.
At wit’s end, the principal accepts Lazhar as a temporary
substitute. She has the assistance of a psychologist
(Nicole-Sylvie Lagarde) to help her keep an eye on things.
Lazhar, a man of curly hair but ramrod-straight posture and
demeanour, quickly learns that he’s walking on quicksand. His
students don’t like his insistence on straight rows for desks,
or his teaching of Balzac, who wrote La Comédie humaine —
who teaches Balzac to Grade 6?
But they sense a kindred spirit in this deeply involved man,
someone who has also felt pain and loss.
Lazhar is willing to listen to his young charges, unlike other
adults, who simply make assumptions.
“Everyone thinks we’re traumatized. It’s the adults who are,”
Alice confides to him.
Lazhar has his own difficulties with adults. His Algerian French
is different from Québécois French, and so are his customs. He
doesn’t know what Rice Krispie Squares are. He doesn’t know how
an iPod works.
A female teacher named Claire (Brigitte Poupart) makes romantic
gestures towards him, but he’s not sure how to react. He’s
mostly awkward.
“You’re not from here, so certain nuances escape you,” a parent
tells Lazhar.
It’s true, but what kind of nuance do you bring to the truth?
What should the students be told about what happened to their
teacher?
And what reckoning will Lazhar make with his own harsh reality?
Fellag’s deeply felt performance is matched by the natural charm
of the novice actors whom Falardeau guides to poignancy,
enhanced by Jean-Pascal Hamelin’s beautifully spare piano score.
Monsieur Lazhar is as simple as sunlight, yet as
difficult as forgiveness. |
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::ENTERTAINMENT NEWS WITH A CANADAN TWIST::
