Entirely filmed on location in a small Provençal village,with non-Professional actors.
There's an old song which features the line :"throw the copybooks into the fire and the teacher too";here a schoolboy,on a bet,throws his schoolbag into the river...
This short roughly comprises two parts:
-The boy tries to retrieve his school stuff and plays hooky for a while :the water which flows represents boundless liberty,and before you were born,it is your natural habitat after all.Except for a snippet of a diva 's voice,it's the sound of the nature :lapping,chirping,warbling...
-He returns to school to be confronted with a grumpy teacher who asks for his Holiday homework (although actually Holiday homework was not given by the schoolteacher) made in fact by his dad .The angry teacher ,taking the "what-did -they-teach-you-at school?" to the letter,keeps daddy in the classroom much to the other pupils' joy.Sonny rebels and releases the water snake he has captured :panic in the school .The snake has always epitomized sin ,hasn't it?;freedom for all his mates ;like poet Jacques Prévert's dunce ("Le Cancre") ,he has drawn the face of happiness .
This is a poetic work ,and should be considered a fable,à la Jean Vigo :some details are true:school used to start again in early October because country children were supposed to help their parents on the farms(the calendar reads "3 rd October");the teacher addresses as "Vous" when he talks to his students ,which was not so unusual before May 1968.
Like this ?try these .....
"Zero De Conduite" Jean Vigo ,1933
"Le Ballon rouge" Albert Lamorisse,1956
"L'Ecole Buissonnière " the unfairly overlooked film by Jean-Paul Le Chanois,1948
