¡Primaria!

Primaria means elementary school. The establishment in question in is the San Francisco de Paula School in Seville, where director Ivan Noel taught art for a year. The filming took place in ten days during summer vacation and features Noel's own students, other students and their parents. The rest of the characters, in particular the schoolteachers are actors, with Francisco Alfonsín playing Noel's screen alter ego. Altogether, the children are the protagonists of this movie. Teachers are shown only at work or engaged in conversation in the faculty lounge. There are also tantalizing glimpses of their private lives, and of what makes them tick as educators.

The result has been an outstanding semidocumentary movie. Children act (or are themselves) in an absolutely natural and unselfconscious way. They are able to ignore the presence of the camera since they are being filmed by somebody familiar, their teacher. The movie deals with the vast reservoir of artistry, creativity and imagination present in every child, a reservoir that will remain untapped in absence of good art classes and/or parent attention and support. It also shows the therapeutic effects of art.

The Spanish spoken in this movie is the colorful and musical Andalusian version. Acting is very good all around. Digital cinematography by Ildefonso Corrochano is outstanding. Music (by the director and from other sources) is sparingly used and supports the action. Script by Alfonsín and Noel is fluid, with nothing superfluous or missing. The movie was filmed with on an amazingly low budget and apparently nobody was actually paid for his/her work.

There is much discussion nowadays about the teaching of art in US schools. Nobody questions mathematics of the sciences, but school districts sometimes are short of funds and, invariably, the art classes are the first to be cut. This movie is a powerful argument against these policies and should be mandatory viewing for teachers and administrators everywhere. Don't miss this film; the director has posted it in You Tube with English subtitles.

Excellent movie only possible for a true master in the art of making himself apparently invisible for the children, who seem to function in the scene with complete easiness in one world between documentary and fiction. It is also very funny, and always full of natural and fresh narrative, far from the tragic twist that unfortunately seems to permeate the complete Noel's work so far. Some of the children's paintings are really wonderful. It reminds me the best of François Truffaut and qualify it as an authentic masterpiece. Hopefully the author, whose photographic and film technique's are outstanding, would decide to continue this path. Louis Malle, Jean Vigo... are clearly surpassed here. Only the best Truffaut could be a match for it.