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)

In 1981, France wasn't in a good state. A period of recession, the election of a new president (the socialist Mitterand), and an old-fashioned school system was what it had to deal with. Coluche, one of the country's greatest comedians, decided to show his own view of the situation with the excellent "Le maître d'école", and in the process gave some valuable lessons about humanity, love towards children, and the behaviour of school and parents towards them.

In this movie, he is Gérard Barbier, a shop assistant, who is fired because he protected a young shop-lifter, and decides to become a teacher, believing he fulfills the criteria to do so. The school he works in is not ideal; a syndicalist teacher (Roland Giraud), a disciplinarian one (Josianne Balasko) and a compassionate yet conservative principal are the other prominent members of the staff. None of them is extremely affectionate towards the children (the institution is a primary school), and all of them employ the backward method of punishing them because "they said so". Here comes Barbier to save the situation. From his first moment in class, he explains to his pupils that they should think by themselves, and mostly conducts his lessons through long discussions touching on taboo topics of the time, that mostly arise from innocent jokes the kids make. Homosexuality, the death penalty, democracy are some of the topics the pioneering teacher talks about.

In contrast to the other educators, who don't even think of discussing with their students, Barbier cares about their personal lives too, and helps many of them that face problems in their family environments: the child of divorced parents that he accommodates for some time, another one who doesn't get to do her homework because of having difficulties in life with her single mother, even one whose ball is confiscated since he brought it while it was forbidden to do so; everything is important to the affectionate teacher.

From a sociological standpoint, this film provides a detailed image of the school system and family life in France during the early 80's. The school system hasn't yet evolved too much, having kept its strict character of the d'Estaing years (Giscard d'Estaing was the president before Mitterand). Families too, retain much of their traditional structure, and even in divorced ones, the kids are just expected to obey the parents. Both "Le maître d'école", and the series "Pause café" - this one focusing on high school students- offered refreshing insights into the world of school and the need for compassion for students' problems, almost nonexistent at the time.

With "Le maître d'école", Coluche showed once again his affection for the disadvantaged that led him to create the charity "Les restos du coeur" four years later. For him, children were important, they had opinions too. France was in high need of hearing this back then.

Director Claude Berri, of Jean de Florette fame, portrayed every character as a multifaceted person who isn't just good or bad; yes, Barbier wins our sympathy, but both poor Josianne Balasko, who gets to go to hospital because of her tiredness with her job, and the left-winger Giraud, passionate for change in the representation of teachers through the syndicalist cause, get their moments. These two actors'performances were also excellent and served the film well, showing the contradiction between them and Coluche's character.

Unfortunately, the film hasn't aged completely well, because it also references some positions, that although would be considered outrageous now, were considerably popular back then, the most infamous one being the suggestion of letting only children of French parents go to school. This is just to show that even a time considered ideal by some also had its problems.

In conclusion, "Le maître d'école" is a comedy different from other box-office hits of the time, one that promotes a beautiful and powerful message through memorable performances by capable actors, and admirable direction. In a period where many in France were worried by the school system's state, Coluche came and gave some useful lessons to everyone who wanted to hear; fortunately, many did. And we should be grateful for that.

In Claude Berri's "The School Master", Coluche plays Gérard Barbier, a substitute teacher in a public school in some French little town whose name doesn't really matter. And it's not every day that a film's main character shares the same job than I and so maybe behind its façade of unpretentious little comedy, that film touched me a little more deeply than it was supposed to. I'm surprised how much I liked it given how remarkably unexecptional it is.

And I mean that as a compliment.

Coluche was a huge star in the late 70s but the 80s didn't start very well for him. His candidacy to the French election brought him a great deal of troubles (some still believe his death in 1986 wasn't accidental) and it did create much turbulences in his marital life, by the time the film was released, he had left his comic troop and divorced. And so maybe that role was a medicine he needed, a low-key comedy without much emphasis on his buffoonish manners, a film where he would act normally like a good guy willing to teach.

So much fuss could have been made out of the popular clown teaching a class and there's a fair amount of archetypes to justify the use of school as a comedic premise. At first it seems that the film is going to take that direction, it has its share of teacher's pets and bullies, an obnoxious brat you can't punish because his father is the mayor, you also get the depressed suicidal spinster ironically named Lajoie (Josiane Balasko) and the leftist unionized teacher (Jean Giraud) always at odds with the principal (Jacques Debary). Berri's writing has a way to make these people colorful but never caricatures.

And watching the film, I could measure the degree of decline of French comedy. The equivalent of a film like this would be "Profs" or "Ducobu", adaptations of comic books, which is exactly what French comedy has turned to: stock characters aiming to generate some laughs and crowd-pleasing diversity, the easy way. "School Master" doesn't care for that or cares just enough to make the inclusion of an African and an Arab kid something genuine, not designed to be politically correct. Things have changed on that level too.

"School Master" is different on another level: there's no particular narrative arc, everything goes fine for Barbier and situations unfold quietly without a particular call for tension-inducing situations. So many things could happen: an incident with a child, a romance, a hostage situation, fire, but Berri would have none of these. It's the kind of film where a teacher talks to kids about homosexuality and hormones and the Academy inspector doesn't even notice it and give sound advice to the newcomer.

One would then ask the purpose of a film without any particular stakes?

I guess having Coluche as a teacher was just a good idea. Simply said. It's such a simple idea that the film is driven by its own tenderness and respect toward school. You see Barbier as a man working in a clothes shop defending a child who stole boots and when he's fired he decides to start teaching. The first interview is still relevant today: he's told that he's joining the noblest government corporation but also the poorest and. In fact, I was surprised that even back then, teachers were complaining about the downfall of education, the so-called new techniques of child awakening etc. Quite an eye-opening experience.

But like a pupil spacing out in the class, Barbier hears these complaints without much listening, all he cares is just handling the course and if needed improvising a little, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I was wondering how much of the scenes were scripted but I think Coluche can't fake his emotions, let alone with kids. It's hard enough to get good acting from kids, inspire genuine reacting is the best option. Coluche is natural and feels natural. Two years later, he'd be even more natural in the masterpiece "So Long, Stooge" that will earn him the French Oscar.

I said 1981 was kind of a dark year for the actor and watching him during a promotional interview, he didn't seem to have recovered from it and I hope he could find some comfort making that film. "School Master" has a heart at the right place and doesn't try to preach something or revolutionize new techniques, some little parts didn't age very like a kid smoking or one sharing a bed with an adult although Barbier never comes across as the creepy type. He's got good will, he tries to please the principal, is loyal to his fiancée (Charlotte de Turkheim) and never tries to abuse from Lajoie's desperateness and give good advice to a girl whose parents are divorced. Maybe it was his own experience speaking?

I liked the film and I suspect I would have cherished its memory had I discovered it earlier. It's also a time capsule of the early 80s where schools didn't look from those I'd occupy by the end of the decade. There's also that catchy little song by Richard Gotainer 'Sampa" that has nothing to do with the theme but gives the perfect playful tone to the little film, the title song from Alain Souchon at the end credits works even better... in a sooting way.

What else to say, Barri who debuted with a childhood film named "The Old Man and the Child" seems to still have it. He can make comedy look as fluid and ordinary as reality and like for Michel Simon, he knew the asset was Coluche being himself. The minimalism paid off with 3 million viewers that year. Indeed, this is film that doesn't work despite its limitation but because of them.

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.

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.