Monsieur Lazhar

This film won Canada's Genie for best film and deserved it. The story is simple and profound, contemporary and timeless at the same time. After the suicide of a grade school class teacher, a new teacher appears ready to take over the class. An Algerian immigrant, Monsieur Lazhar brings such a deep humanity to his job, that the traumatized kids are able to come to terms in some ways with what has happened. What they don't realize is how much their new teacher knows of their pain first hand.

Fellag's performance as the title character is note perfect and gigantic. The children are astonishing and the final scene, the final moment will crush even the most stoic viewer's resolve not to weep.

Saw this last night as part of a Canadian Film Festival. It's a real gem that negotiates it's way around trauma and intimacy with tact while never preaching. It's a true humanist film in that it attempts to deal with the real issues of being a human being in a realistic and sympathetic way. I'm a fan of Ken Loach, but at times he can make his films too didactic. This movie never does that. The performances are universally excellent and it's open ended structure allows you to go away with multiple endings to think through. I wanted to know so much more about Mr Lazhar after the story ends. Similar to A Separation in many ways and also its equal.

Monsieur Lazhar is based on a play by Evelyne de la Cheneliere and it is a Canadian film in French with English subtitles. The film is about an immigrant from Algeria named Bachir Lazhar, who applies for a job at the local elementary school when there is a position open. In desperate need of a new teacher, the school hires him and Bachir starts shortly after. He is teaching a grade six class and what he was not prepared for is that several of the students are still in a state of grief because the previous teacher died and they were all quite attached to her and that is why the position was open and how he got the job. Bachir has a different teaching method than the class's previous teacher and a lot of what he says and does seems different to the students and a lot of what the curriculum and how the students behave and just life in Canada in general is somewhat strange to Bachir, having lived most of his life in Algeria. Putting those differences beside, Bachir tries to move on and be the best teacher that he can and soon he starts to warm up to the children in his class and he seems to get through to several of them as well and they start to really like him. However both at school in his classroom and even in his personal life, Bachir will have to deal with memories from the past, both of his own and his students and teach them how to grieve and deal with death as he has to face some of his own demons and personal problems as well. Over the years there have been many films made about inspirational teachers who win over classrooms of at once reluctant, or delinquent students only to have a big happy ending at the end. Some of those type of films have worked in the past and some have not. However, I find that it is a premise and plot device that has been used perhaps too often in films and is starting to get predictable and clichéd. I am very happy to say that Monsieur Lazhar avoided all that and went through a different formula with it's storytelling. Yes, it is about a teacher who has to win over his students, but there is so much more to the story as well. For one thing everything in this Montreal town in Quebec, is very foreign to Bachir, but he has a lot of self esteem and determination to set out and do his best for not only himself, but his students as well. He wants to leave behind his troubled past and start something new, which is hard at first, but he is giving his best effort to make it work. In dealing with the children he has a calm and very likable quality to him when he is teaching them. He generally also wants what is best for his students and for them to succeed not only in his class, but further along in life as well. What prevents this from coming together is the painful memories of the student's beloved first teacher who died just before Bachir, took the job. The school has counselors come in and the parents all try to do their best with the children and help them with the grief, guilt, sadness and other emotions that they are feeling, but unbeknownst to all of them, that the one who can truly relate to this incident and be the most help to the children at this time is Bachir, who is just getting to know the children and has never met the previous teacher, or really know anything about her. Putting the cultural and personal differences beside, he can reach these children in surprising and uplifting ways. This is a film just as much about death and how it not only affects children, but everyone else as well. How the film shows the different individuals trying to cope with it and how it doesn't always work, or perhaps takes more time for some than others, is an accurate picture and more lifelike and precise which I also appreciated about the film. The film plays everything quite quiet and low key, but the emotion we get out of the actors, and from the great script and direction is priceless. I felt extremely moved by the end of this film and felt that I got to know these characters and share their grief, heartaches and also loves and happiness. Bachir, himself is also a very interesting character with kind eyes and a warm smile and I really got to like him and his character throughout the movie. He is brilliantly played by Mohamed Fellag, who does a quiet and low key character, but with a lot of depth and feeling. It's a great performance. The performances from all the children are great in here as well. I liked this film because I think so many people will be able to relate and connect to it on several different levels, but we are also given a tremendous piece of entertainment to go along with it. I liked that this film took chances with what it talked about and showed us and ends up turning out to be quite relevant and relatable. The film will probably please most adult viewers and older teens may get a lot out of it as well. Even a day after seeing this film I still thought about it quite a lot and about the hold and power it held over me. At times happy, sad and overall an experience that I would certainly recommend. One of 2011's best films.

Monsieur Lazhar is another in a long line of inspirational teacher films set to show viewers that teachers are an unending source of inspiration and worldly advice. I have grown tired of this plot line and subsequent variations, but Monsieur Lazhar is a shining example of the inspirational teacher film and the poignancy of said films if executed correctly, with honesty and maturity.

Philippe Falardeau's (It's Not Me, I Swear and Congorama) film adaption of Evelyne de la Chenelière's play (she also plays Alice's mother), Monsieur Lazhar was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category as the official Canadian submission. The film tells the story of Bachir Lazhar (Mohamed Fellag), an Algerian immigrant hired at Montreal public grade school after the original teacher was found hanging from the ceiling of her classroom. The teacher, Martine Lachance, was found by one of her students, Simon (Émilien Néron) while he was delivering milk to the classroom as he always does every Thursday. The film continues to show the effects of death and the ways that the children try to deal with the loss, but also their grief, which at times seem to be stifled by the school.

Monsieur Lazhar, at the same time, is dealing with a loss of his own; having come to Canada seeking asylum and waiting for his wife and children to join him, only to have his family killed the night before they were supposed to leave Algeria. The film cuts between Bachir in the classroom (having the children do a dictation of Balzac, rearranging their desks, etc.) and Bachir outside of the classroom (picking up his wife's belongings, preparing for a hearing, etc.). No one knows of his painful past, nor of his refugee status; the school is under the impression that he is a permanent resident of Canada.

Bachir notices, because of his current dealing with grief, that the children are trying to communicate or express their feelings about the death of their teacher. The school has brought on a psychologist to help the children come to grips with their loss. Bachir realizes that it is merely a stop-gap, but is told "not to make waves". He continues to witness things that lead him to believe that the children want to talk about their teacher, Martine and also of the trouble they are having trying to understand something that may well be beyond their comprehension.

Monsieur Lazhar is a heart-warming, but at the same time, heart-wrenching story of how people (whether it be children or adults) trying to come to terms with the loss of a family member (albeit for the children it was a teacher, but school, at that young age, can be something like a second home). Bachir, himself, uses a very personal and poignant short story, that he wrote himself and reads to his class, in an effort to say goodbye - something that Martine Lachance never did. The film features some great performances from Mohamed Fellag as Monsieur Lazhar, Émilien Néron as Simon - a guilt-ridden child that feels responsible for his teacher's suicide - and Sophie Nélisse as Alice, the surprisingly mature young girl that has the courage to speak about the effects of Martine's decisions.

Kevin FilmPulse.net

Canada's entry for 2012's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, "Monsieur Lazhar" is a quiet, sweet and deceptively simple film that tells the story of Bachir Lazhar, an Algerian refugee who offers his services as a substitute teacher for an elementary school class that has lost its teacher. The circumstances of the teacher's death, the students' and staff's reaction to it, and Lazhar's own back-story combine to create a compelling film that has a lot to say about the barriers we place between ourselves and our children today.

Mohammd Fellag, an Algerian comedian, writer and humorist, portrays Monsieur Lazhar, and is surrounded by an exceptional cast of juvenile actors, led by Sophie Nelisse and Emilien Neron. The performances in this film are uniformly superb which, given the subject matter, is quite an accomplishment (particularly for the young actors portraying the classmates.)

Lazhar's attempts to deal with his students' grief, their cultural and educational differences, the rigid requirements of an educational system, and his own difficulties and loss all culminate in a final scene of incredible power and emotion - the power of one person to connect with another, the power of one act to convey incredible meaning.

"Monsieur Lazhar" is worthy of the honors it has received and worth a trip to the theatre.

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