Die Schüler der Madame Anne

Very bland movie. Only a few parts really stuck out to me as showing deep and valuable character development, felt like because of how many characters there were, the surface could only be really scratched on a few of the student characters.

This movie deals with a way a teacher uses to get interest and uprise its multicultural children's. There is nothing new in that and this method has been used by thousands of dedicated teachers for a thousand years, probably since the invention of school by Charlemagnes. Everyone can tell of teacher that specially impressed us for their ability to arouse curiosity. Now this could have been filmed in half the lenght, and stripped of some subtle side messages such as its bias against religions. There is a "secular republic against fanaticism" moralism in there that is heavy in the end, that is not balanced and do not answer questions (such as the fact that Nazis were primarily pagans). A mixed bag.

The film is certainly based on a true story but, during the first half, the director excessively caricatures the unlivable side of this high school where teachers daily manage ill-mannered students as immature as disrespectful, with the surrealistic impression that a teacher is thrown into a lions' den, to finally manage to work collectively on a subject as unifying as sad: the Shoah. Ahmed Dramé and Ariane Ascaride are both excellent and save a rough film barely conveying emotion. As a synthesis: 5/6 of 10.

I don't think this belongs to the league of cinema masterpieces, nevertheless I think it is still a decent movie, with its own dignity, worth seeing. I think that dismissing quickly a movie just because it's not based on a totally new concept is a bit unfair; if we were to allow only this kind of movies to be produced, we would go to the cinema once every year or two; movies, like books and other forms of storytelling, build on each other, they can look at the same theme from different angles and perspectives, still maintaining all their raison d'être. The most immediate, obvious link of the Les Heritiers is The Dead Poets Society, which was proposing a similar situational context (a teacher trying to motivate a group of disengaged students) but a very different socio-cultural one. I happened to watch Les Heritiers a few days after I saw American Honey, which on the contrary offers a different situational context, against a pretty similar socio-cultural background; I thought they all contribute to an interesting debate, one point of view about a lost, hopeless generation and the other one just opposite to that, offering a "yes, we can" message. Specifically, I think Les Heritiers has the merit of prosing a rather honest look on a rather sensitive subject like the coexistence of different cultures and religions in the French marginal society. The movie is able to do that avoiding any moral judgement or patronising position, using a realistic style and leveraging good acting by most of protagonists.

The French movie Les héritiers was shown in the U.S. with the title Once in a Lifetime (2014) It was co-written and directed by Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar. Her co-writer was Ahmed Dramé, who co-stars in the film as the student Malik. (The film is based on Ahmed's own experiences.)

Ariane Ascaride plays Anne Gueguen, a dedicated and skillful high-school teacher. She teaches students from a poor, culturally mixed neighborhood. Most people have given up on these students, and they have given up on themselves.

Rather than just throwing facts at them, Gueguen engages the students in fascinating but difficult project. She wants them to enter a national competition to produce a work about French children in the Holocaust.

France is notorious for the manner in which the French police helped the Germans find and deport Jews. One of the students tells the incredulous class that the French Fascist, Pierre Laval, insisted on deporting French children to the concentration camps, although the Germans hadn't demanded that.

What happens next is somewhat predictable. The principal and the students themselves don't believe that they can accomplish something of this magnitude. Even when enthusiasm for the project starts to emerge, it's difficult for the students to work together for the common good.

Anne Gueguen is quite a teacher. Her students learned things they never would have learned otherwise, because she helped them go after the information themselves. She got them to want to learn. She made learning about the French Holocaust a personal quest for each student.

I don't know how accurately Ariane Ascaride portrays Anne Gueguen, but for me, her portrayal appeared to be perfect. She's the high school teacher you wish you could have had. Ahmed Dramé, as Malik, is already a skilled actor, and he makes his character come alive. The other young actors do well. Although all the scenes are recreated, I got the sense that this was probably a reasonably accurate portrayal of the actual events.

We saw this film at The Little Theatre, as part of the excellent Rochester International Jewish Film Festival. It's available on DVD, and will work well on the small screen. Find it and see it.