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Tragedy strikes in the first few minutes of the movie
when Simon a six grader whose turn it is to take the milk cartons into the
empty school classroom before the lesson begins is confronted with the sight of
his teacher who has just hung herself from the ceiling. What follows is not the story of why the poor
woman took her own life but the profound effects on her pupils and the school as a
whole. Madame Vallancourt the very
stressed school Principal reacts by redecorating the class room and then
employs a professional psychologist to do grief counseling with the class but
she is totally unable to effectively reach the children.
Reluctant to wait until the Authorities allow her to
find a replacement teacher the Principal takes a chance in employing Bashir
Lazhar a very presentable Algerian immigrant who turns up at her Office and claims to have 19 years
experience and provides an impressive resume.
Without checking any references he gets the job and after a shaky start
(he reads Balzac to the children in dictation class!) he soon settles in and forms
deep bonds with the children in his charge.
Whilst everybody in the school is on edge because of
the teacher’s suicide, they are all totally unaware of M. Lazhar’s own recent
tragic past. His wife a prominent dissident in Algeria was murdered along with
their children on the very night they were due to leave the country and join him in Canada
where he was seeking political Asylum.
But it is this very experience that enables him to actually communicate
with the children so successfully and succeed in getting them to really open up
on how they were effected by their teacher's death. He allows them to talk, where others just
assumed what they were thinking
He has to operate in the strict over-legislated rules
of the education system where even a hug is simply not allowed. And it is probably the very thing that most
of the children need.
When the real facts of his life come out and they
discover that Mr Lazhar is in fact a refugee and not a Canadian resident, and was never
a school teacher but a restaurant manager, the Principal has no option than to fire him on the spot even though she had come to appreciate that he was on fact the
perfect solution for dealing with the children’s traumas. He persuades her to let him teach one last
day, as he does not want to leave them without saying goodbye just like his predecessor.
He uses this last lesson to discuss a fable he has written about his own life,
and it has the simple but poignant message for the children that its quite
alright for some things to end before their time.
This captivating and awe-inspiring low-budget indie
movie with its refreshingly honest story line was a sheer delight from start to
finish. Ingeniously directed and written by the remarkable talented Philippe Falardeau who had adapted it from a successful
one-man play was deservedly Canada’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the
Oscars. At the 'Q + A' I attended after the screening he joked about how easy
it was to work with a classroom room full of child actors,
but he certainly has the gift as each and very one of them turned in impeccable convincing
performances that were so heart breaking at times.
And the hangdog expression
on the face of the wonderful Algerian actor Mohamed Fellag who was so superb as the gracious
and sensitive Monsieur Lazhar so adeptly showing how weary he was physically, but with such fine spirits that always seem to soar.
This is movie making at its very best when you leave the theatre so entranced and almost tingling all over. For me it doesn't get much better than this, and hence
that's why I un-hesitantly give it a full 10 stars.
Totally unmissable.
★★★★★★★★★★
★★★★★★★★★★
