newjerseynewsroom.com

BY MIRIAM RINN

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

MOVIE REVIEW

“Monsieur Lazhar,” the French-language drama that was Canada’s nominee for best foreign-language Oscar, deserves all the acclaim and awards it has received. Sensitively directed by Philippe Falardeau, this modest and genuine film earns its deep emotional impact. Falardeau and lead actor Fellag eschew the manipulative sentimentality that mars so many movies about teachers and children to tell a deeply affecting story about an immigrant who takes over a Montreal primary class after a sudden tragedy.

As fourth-grader Simon is about to enter the classroom in the morning, he sees his teacher’s body hanging from the ceiling. It is Thursday, and it is Simon’s job to bring in the containers of milk the kids will drink at break. Horrified, he flees, and the school erupts in hysteria, with teachers struggling to keep children from looking in the doorway. Simon’s serious friend Alice manages to see the same dreadful sight. When an Algerian immigrant presents himself to the school’s harried principal shortly after the event and volunteers to take over the class, she accepts with some apprehension. She asks after the man’s immigration status and credentials, and he assures her that all is in order.

Bashir Lazhar (Algerian actor Fellag) inspires a similar foreboding in the kids when he begins his tenure by assigning them a dictation from Balzac. That’s equivalent to going into an American elementary school and asking the students to write out a passage from “Wuthering Heights.”  The children stare at him as if he has just landed from another plan et. In a way, he has. Although they share a language, the Canadian children and Monsieur Lazhar do not have much else in common–except for grief. In many ways, “Monsieur Lazhar” is a meditation on grief and how that emotion both brings people together and sets them apart. The children are traumatized by the decision of the teacher they loved to leave them in so violent a manner, and we soon learn that Bashir has also endured unspeakable violence in his native land.

Slowly, Bashir wins the children’s trust and even urges them to strive for a higher standard of accomplishment. He is used to a more rigorous learning routine and demands they ask more of themselves. Fellag infuses Bashir with an innate dignity and sense of decorum, and Falardeau does not condescend to the kids, thankfully. Although the class comes close to being the standard politically correct assortment of sizes and ethnic types, the director treats the students with respect rather than using them for predictable laughs or plot turns; they always seem to be believable children.