Charting the events within a small single-class village school over the course of one academic year 'Etre Et Avoir' takes a warm and serene look at primary education in the French heartlands. A dozen youngsters aged 4-10 are brought together in a rural classroom and taught every subject by a single teacher. A master of quiet authority he patiently navigates the children towards adolesence cooling down their arguments and listening to their problems with extraordinary dedication. Soon however he will have to say goodbye to those older students who are now ready to go... onto the state school in the local town. Winner of a host of international awards Etre et Avoir is a unique meeting of a director of remarkable talent and a man whose assured approach to teaching will have an impact not only upon the lucky few children who share his wisdom but upon anyone who sees this extraordinary and heart-warming film. [show more]
"Être et avoir" is named for the two French auxiliary verbs- to be and to have- and it's the reasoning behind this title that best sums up Philibert's approach to his subject. He doesn't engage in the guerrilla tactics of Michael Moore or the sensational high concept approach of Morgan Spurlock, but it's still met with much acclaim and appreciation worldwide. There can still be some argument of mediation, given the film's focus on comedy through Jojo's antics and on drama through Mr. Lopez's imminent retirement, but it's an endearing enough film that does a charming job in capturing a seminal stage of everyone's life on film. Whether you're French or not, everyone has had that first experience of injustice that's all over Alize's expression when she has her rubber hoard raided by one of the other children. Surely everyone of that age has some manner of social crisis like Jojo, and needs to check who his friends are? And the film is full of that wondrous outlook that only a child has upon the world.
More than this, it's a tribute to teaching- Mr. Lopez is an incredibly dedicated and competent teacher, being as much at ease with the older students as he is with the school's toddlers, and he never ostensibly patronises his charges. Lopez says in talking head shots towards the end of the film that he always wanted to be a teacher, even from being a little boy, and there's a great deal to be said for how professional and caring he is. It's also in this latter half of the film that the more dramatic stuff comes to the fore, with one kid going missing and another talking about his ill father, but for the most part this is a moving tribute to Lopez's work. Education in rural France is hardly at the top of anyone's agenda- unless you live in rural France- but Philibert makes it interesting for multi-cultural audiences, painting an often amusing portrait of what life is like for these kids.
Curiously, the only negative response from critics, at least according to Rotten Tomatoes, comes from American critics. Michael Booth of the Denver Post said the film was "as stultifying as watching paint dry, without the recompense of sniffing fumes", which I honestly think says more about what Booth's potential history of substance abuse than it does about the film. Moreover, it says a lot about how American audiences might struggle to deal with this- a world cinema hit untouched by cynicism, and for which sequel ("Deux Être Deux avoir", anyone?) or remake prospects are negligible. That's not to say "Être et avoir" is as engaging as it is innocent, but it is a charming enough portrait of a rather obscure subject.
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A documentary that follows French schoolteacher, Georges Lopez as he teaches twelve students between the ages of four and ten in a one room schoolhouse.
Award-winning documentary charting the events within a small single-class village primary school in the Auvergne region of France over the course of one academic year. A dozen children aged 4-10 are brought together each day in a rural classroom and taught all their subjects by a single teacher, Monsieur Georges Lopez. A master of quiet authority, he patiently navigates the children towards adolesence, cooling down their arguments and listening to their problems, while trying to balance the varying needs of the disparate age groups for whom he must provide.
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