ÊTRE ET AVOIR
TO BE AND TO HAVE |
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Director:
Nicolas Philibert
Cast: Teacher: Georges Lopez
Schoolchildren: Alizé, Axel, Guillaume, Jessie, Johan (Jojo), Jonathan,
Julien, Laura, Létitia, Marie-Elisabeth, Nathalie and Olivier.
Awards: Best Documentary, European Film Awards; Prix Louis Delluc
(2002).
Running time: 104 minutes
Production: France, 2002
Rating: Not rated (general audience)
Gauge: 35mm (color)
Language: French
Distributor: New Yorker Films
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"The
interest of To Be and To Have is not sociological: it is not
really about the French educational system, rural life, or even the
way children learn. It is, rather, the portrait of an artist, a man
whose work combines discipline and inspiration and unfolds mysteriously
and imperceptibly. The film is also a meditation on the enigma of
young lives and minds." A. O. Scott, The New York Times. |
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Renowned documentary
filmmaker Philibert (In the Land of the Deaf), trains his
camera on the microcosm of a one-room schoolhouse in a remote mountain
village in the Auvergne. Following the school’s twelve students,
aged three to eleven, through an academic year, Philibert observes
their day-to-day activities, which emerge with such immediacy and
naturalness as to make one wonder how he filmed them. His strategy
was to integrate himself and his crew into the class, allowing the
children to ask questions and play with the equipment until, their
curiosity sated, they regarded the film shoot as just another aspect
of classroom life. Like an invisible onlooker, Philibert thus captures
moments of intimacy and unexpected humor: a child transfixed by
a circling fly; two four-year-olds battling with a photocopier gone
berserk. At the heart of the film is the school’s stern but
compassionate teacher, 55-year-old Georges Lopez, who instructs
the students in everything from writing and arithmetic to cooking,
while resolving classroom disputes and counselling parents on the
side. Shot on film in available light, Être et avoir
is a tribute to the art of close, discreet observation, which here
yields unassuming beauty and considerable emotional force.
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| PHOTO New
Yorker Films |
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