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.

What happens when a class of 6th graders loses their beloved teacher to suicide? What happens when an Algerian immigrant applies to be their new teacher in a culture he is just beginning to understand? What is behind the teacher's stillness, his smile and his sad eyes? This film is a beautiful rendering of a stage play about love and loss, but also about hope. In this wonderfully-told story, the hope isn't trite, contrived or artificial. It's something you almost have to feel. It comes from the growing relationship between this strange teacher in a strange land, and his student children, so in need of his help.

The movie's cast is rich with great acting, by the kids of course, but here, if anything, they're outshone by Algerian actor Mohamed Fellag, whose face tells 1000 stories about where he has been and, perhaps, where he hopes to go.

The only things not perfect are the characters, for this writer and director have been too careful to give them - even the "best" of the children - no flaws. They are all more good than bad, but also complex in their own way, suffering the loss of one teacher and the growing pains of learning to learn from another.

This film gets my vote for Best Foreign Language Film, even over the excellent A Separation. Don't miss it!

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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Here again is an amazing French language film about children....This film brings up so many issues about the state of education in our modern society... the role of the teacher, the administrators, the parents, in the development of our kids... and our society. And the children in this film are all wonderful... smart, caring, funny, and mischievous. I wonder, hypothetically, what children become without someone like MONSIEUR LAZHAR in their lives. I think more and more children have fewer adult role models to look up to. Everyone is so busy, cornered in their own boxes, afraid to step out of bounds, with no time to give...It makes for a secluded...secular world...