To Be and To Have
1 rating since posting on Tuesday, February 3, 2004|
in Everywhere
(submitted by
Adrian
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Overall Rating based on 1 rating |
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Here's a Boston Globe review: Exploring children's world in one French schoolhouse By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff 09/19/2003 Nicolas Philibert's "To Be and To Have" documents a small schoolhouse in central France. The film is as tiny as an Altoid and as curiously strong. For a year, Philibert parked his camera in a cozy schoolhouse nestled in the dairy-farming region in the verdant Auvergne region of central France and watched as teacher Georges Lopez meticulously prepared his classroom, five mornings a week, for the dozen or so children who show up to learn and play. Nothing momentous happens here, but Philibert has a magical sense of how to find the simple poetry lurking in the universal routine of being a kid. A lot of the film's lyricism is extracurricular. One early image is of a pair of turtles crossing the empty classroom during a storm. Throughout, Philibert marks the seasons with transitional cutaways to the countryside in all its moods. These shots have the initial effect of seeming florid, but eventually, it's clear they're of a piece with the recesses and field trips and picnics. Quietly, "To Be and To Have" elevates documentary to a sublime pastoral. This is the most successful documentary ever in France, and it's as good on the subject of children as Francois Truffaut's "Small Change," from 1976. It doesn't pretend to understand them, but appreciates their mystery without making them seem preternatural. Philibert takes the same humanist approach to his films' subjects as the American documentarian Frederick Wiseman has to his: grace and the transfixing weave of point of view and objectivity. Philibert's camera isn't as shrinking as Wiseman's, and he tends to be an animist; Wiseman is drawn to bureaucracies' relationship to people. But his heart is as big. Lopez tells his class he's going to retire after 30 years, and the way the news is greeted you'd think he'd told them something far worse. But this is about the worst news the gang could get. Philibert gently underscores Lopez's touch by contrasting it with how the kids act with their parents. A few mothers, in particular, are at a loss as to how to help sons and daughters perform better. All the children appeared as loved outside the classroom, but the attention at home doesn't seem to measure up. (OK, Julien, whose entire family stands over him to help with his math homework, might be an exception.) The devotion Lopez inspires in his charges and the sway that this beautiful swath of France has over them is remarkable. After Lopez drops his bomb, the children want to know what's next. Where will he go? Tahiti, someone intones. He says "no," and asks his depressed audience if they'd prefer Tahiti to this place. They all agree: This place is better. www.boston.com/movies/display - ~glen , posted 06/19/09 |
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Extraordinary film
hi adrian and others-- my best friend and i saw this extraordinary film sunday at the castro. i'm a retired lifelong high school teacher of 35 years and he's a lifelong elementary teacher who still has his hand in at teaching year 45, now teaching a period a day. we're both in our 67th year in life and excellent 'teachers emeritus.' we loved this film, for ALL the reasons that you cite but also because the teacher in the film was NOT an extraordinary one; in fact he was quite mediocre (but good enough) considering he had taught for almost 40 years. THAT in fact was another real charm of this documentary, that we got to have this--as you truly put it--rare, fragile, even quirky peep so full of exceptionally personal resonances and poignancies for ANY of us as interlopers! thanks for this review--and i hope others see it before it goes! will p.s. is it available on DVD? i'd love to have it to show to friends! - Will & Jasper , posted 02/03/04 |
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Charming little film
To Be and To Have Nicolas Philibert This charming little film has everything that people dislike about French films and everything people like about French films. It's showing two more nights at the Castro, 7:00 and 9:20, (to Wednesday). It's not often that a small documentary gets a week run at the Castro. They chose this one well. Rather like Varda's Gleaners, this film follows a small classroom of children from ages four to eleven as their teacher steers them through an ordinary year's worth of little victories, heartreaking losses, careless insults ("you're just as strong as him, but sometimes words hurt people too..") and tender affirmations. It's a fantastic little window on to the fragile little people we all were at one time, and captured by the kind of film-making that's rare this side of the Atlantic. - Adrian , posted 02/03/04 |
