Le maître d'école

Why did I decided to pick this one up at my local library? There's so many good movie out there, why settle for a mediocre one? I don't no how to answer that question. In the case of "Le Maître d'école", maybe it's because my wife is a teacher herself.

This is not a movie that you'll fondly remember in a few years times. In fact, you'll probably have forgotten most of it. But still, it's OK to watch, it's enjoyable. Coluche is good as the teacher. The kids are not too over the top. It's an honest comedy, with a certain commentary on the teaching job. But while some scenes are too long or superficial, others are not enough developed.

Seen at home, in Toronto, on March 17th, 2006.

73/100 (**½)

Being a teacher is an extremely serious business in current day France. Most teachers are doing tough jobs as they are constrained to work in crowded schools where violence and insults are regular features. There is also the problem of job satisfaction as the salaries offered are not very high. However, despite all the shortcoming mentioned above teaching profession continues to remain a noble profession in France and elsewhere as good teachers can always make a difference in the lives of students. The true king of French comedy actor Coluche as Gérard Barbier is one such good teacher. It is with great sensibility and tenderness that he plays the role of an educator who really makes efforts to understand the world of children. Although 'Le Maître De l'Ecole' is a comedy film with some memorable performances by school children who crack various hilarious jokes with their teacher, there are also times when it takes the form of a serious film. This gives viewers new ideas about the difficult lives of teachers at an educational institution for children. For this purpose, director Claude Berri extracted good performances from actors Josiane Balasko and Roland Giraud. Watching this film with children would be a great experience for parents as well as teachers as it depicts how one has to behave like children in order to understand their world.

Because he wanted to defend a little boy who was stealing a pair of boots in the clothes shop where he used to work, Gérard Barbier (Coluche) is fired from his job. Because he's only graduated from high school, he decides to become a teacher. Installed in a school, he carries out more or less of his obligations with a little help from his workmates. But one day, nearly all of them fall sick. Who will replace them?

When the movie was launched in 1981, Berri claimed he didn't intend to make a negative movie on school but to show the frontier between freedom and discipline. We must recognize it: his movie doesn't reach his goal and he barely enriches his words. For lacking of having made a brilliant movie, Berri's movie remains a nice movie, deprived of vulgarity and enjoys of Coluche's performance either right, either funny. Even if it introduces, convenient situations (like the inspector's arrival in the classroom) as well as the characters (the depressive Mme Lajoie performed by Josiane Balasko), the comic side of the movie is gentle and honest. You must see Coluche teaching to pupils when you know that he hasn't got any experience at all in education.

However, the movie doesn't succeed in hiding a few weaknesses: the screenplay doesn't avoid a few clichés linked to school: the revolting food in the canteen, some of Coluche's pupils are psychological problem children (one of them has got divorced parents). At last, the music just serves as a decorative role to the movie. You could say the same thing to the long and endless wedding sequence at the end of the movie.

All in all, an entertaining movie but without any great originality.

I may seem harsh in my rating as this movie is well-intended and shows a vision of school that tends to near the ideal many have. The characters are likeable and Coluche seems in his element as a teacher with the kids.

However the comedy in itself is uneven and more the addition of sketches, missing a guiding principle - and a story. It reveals however quite a lot of that period, released after the win of Mitterrand and the left for the first time after WWII, the optimism and idealism that were again possible.

As usual, a Coluche movie is for me a guaranteed fun moment as it happens in the 80s thus the best period in France and also because Coluche was such a gifted and role model actor! Here this one ranks among his best for two reasons: 1) Coluche has the best opportunity to show his really big heart: as a school teacher, he listens to his pupils, he is full of compassion for them; he helps everyone: his boss, his colleagues,… When you know that he was the single one rich artist to put his money and time to help the poor, you understand easily watching this movie where he draws such love and energy and why he miss us so much as there is not a single french celebrity who follows his path!!! 2) This movie is a condensed vision of what France was in the 80s: a cool place, with open debates, a old school administration with values, families working and kids respectful. Now all this balance has been exploded and being a teacher now is like being a soldier! I really like the idea that was supported in the movie that kids must be taught how to think by themselves! Now this fundamental principle of free citizens have been totally erased! However as this school happened as the same time as mine, this surely explains why this movie can reverb on me like that because I'm just one of this thousand kids who have been enlightened like this!