MONSIEUR
LAZHAR (director/writer: Philippe Falardeau;
screenwriter: based
on the stage play by Evelyne de la Chenelière;
cinematographer:
Ronald Plante; editor: Stéphane Lafleur;
music: Martin
Léon; cast: Mohamed Fellag (Bachir
Lazhar), Sophie Nélisse (Alice), Émilien
Néron (Simon), Danielle Proulx (Mrs.
Vaillancourt), Brigitte Poupart (Claire), Louis
Champagne (Janitor), Jules Philip (Gaston), Francine
Ruel (Mrs. Dumas), Sophie Sanscartier (Audrée);
Runtime: 94; MPAA Rating: PG-13; producers: Luc Déry/Kim McCraw;
Music Box Films; 2011-Canada-in French with English
subtitles)
"A humanistic story about
how tragedy has different effects on people."
Reviewed
by Dennis Schwartz
A humanistic story about
how tragedy has different effects on people, about how
a good teacher functions in a classroom and how an
immigrant from Algeria relates to the French speaking
people from Quebec and vice versa. Canadian
writer-director Philippe Falardeau ("Congorama"/"It's Not Me,
I Swear!")
bases the
gripping topical French-Canadian drama on the one-person stage play by Evelyne de la
Chenelière.
It opens during the winter season in
a Montreal elementary school, where the 11-year-old Simon (Émilien
Néron) while on morning
milk-monitor duty shockingly discovers his popular
young teacher, Mrs. Martine Lachance, has hanged herself from a pipe in the
classroom. Before the children are cleared out of the
building, Simon's best friend in school, Alice (Sophie Nélisse), takes a peek at the suicide
victim. While the class gets a psychologist to help
them get over the shock, Monsieur
Bachir
Lazhar (Mohamed Fellag, Algerian theater director
and actor--lives in in Paris since 1995), a recent immigrant from
Algeria, a week later applies to the stressed-out
principal Mrs.
Vaillancourt (Danielle
Proulx) for
the job of replacement teacher and to get the job lies
about his teaching experience. Lazhar claims to have
taught grade school in Algiers for 19 years when in actuality he was a
civil servant who later owned a restaurant. It was his wife who taught
in college and who was an author of a political book
against the Algerian regime. The dignified and
unassuming Lazhar proves to be a
sensitive teacher, one of the best in the school,
who does things differently from the previous
teacher but wins over the class as they go through
the healing period because he relates to their
unstated trauma.
What works especially
well are the series of classroom scenes that capture
school life, from yard play to Lazhar using the
difficult author Balzac for classroom diction
lessons. Eventually we learn a little more why the
teacher chose suicide, why Simon feels guilty over
his teacher's death and what painful events happened
to Lazhar in Algeria that made him seek political
asylum in Canada.
It's a gentle and
observant moralistic tale that doesn't seek answers,
but movingly tries to show there's a common ground
to all who experience tragedy even if they come from
worlds that are much different.
The
film was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign
language film and won six Genies (Canadian Oscars) for best
picture, director, adapted screenplay and actor.
REVIEWED ON 5/28/2012
GRADE: A-
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
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SCHWARTZ
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