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| A class of children and a happy teacher on the poster for Philippe Falardeau's Monsieur Lazhar |
A 7th grade teacher hangs herself in her classroom, and an Algerian refugee gets hired to replace her, but he faces a hard time being himself in the midst of the school's handling of the aftermath and grief as well as in his own tragic life story.
Monsieur Lazhar is written and directed by great Quebecker filmmaker Philippe Falardeau (The Left-Hand Side of the Fridge (2000)), adapting the one-character play Bashir Lazhar (2002) by Évelyne de la Chenelière (L'Imposture (2009)).
Mohamed Fellag (The Rabbi's Cat/Le Chat du Rabbin (2011)) gives a very good performance in the title role as the new teacher, to which he brings humanity and dignity.
It is a scorching, unsympathetic image of Canada that the film implicitly draws; female-dictated, conflict-averse, marked by fear of intimacy, hysterically overprotective, exaggerated in its focus on specialists for every possible challenging instance in life, - coupled with habitual rudeness, anxiousness and, which is almost worst since we are here dealing with a school, contempt for classical edification. There are nuances, but because it is so thoroughly an uphill struggle to work in this environment for Lazhar, together with the suicide, - and Lazhar's own story of how his wife and daughters were murdered in an arson attack in Algeria, - the film becomes immensely heavy to sit through.
At the same time it seems like a plot-dictated adult perspective on children that the child students in the story are almost only concerned with the teacher's suicide, which their entire lives seem to circle somewhat unnaturally around. There is a lack of spunk in these Canadian kids.
Monsieur Lazhar is an ambitious and promising societally critical drama, if not the bull's eye that some deem it to be.
Related posts:
Philippe Falardeau: 2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
Top 10: The best true story movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
The Good Lie (2014) - Under-appreciated true story gem
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: Unknown
Box office: 9 mil. $
= Uncertain, - but likely a box office success
[Monsieur Lazhar premiered 8 August (Locarno Film Festival, Switzerland) and runs 94 minutes. Shooting took place in Montreal. The film opened #33 to a 112k $ first weekend in 19 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #21 and in 81 theaters (different weeks), grossing 2 mil. $ (22.2 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Spain with 1.6 mil. $ (17.8 %) and Australia with 1.3 mil. $ (14.4 %). If made on a realistic 3 mil. $, the film would rank as a box office success. The film was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, lost to Asghar Farhadi's A Separation (Iran). The film won an award in Toronto, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 3.5/4 star review, translating to two notches higher than this one. Falardeau returned with The Good Life (2014). Fellag returned in In Turmoil/Dans la Tourmente (2011). Monsieur Lazhar is certified fresh at 97 % with an 8.16/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Monsieur Lazhar?
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