Etre Et Avoir DVD > Reviews > • To Be And To Have

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Good

Advantages:	Great direction, great teacher, really touching film
Disadvantages:	None  -  do NOT be put off by subtitles !  !

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Etre et Avoir

Whilst browsing in the World cinema section of my local HMV I came across this film. The picture of the very cute looking French boy on the front made me want to turn over and read more about the film and eventually I was persuaded to part with money and buy a copy, being very annoyed at myself for missing an airing of this on terrestrial TV (BBC2).

• Plot •
It's actually a documentary, a fact you might not be aware of straight away, though a quick read of the blurb on the DVD casing will soon clarify that. It follows a teacher - Georges Lopez - and his dozen-or-so pupils, in their single-class village school in the farming community of Auvergne in France. The children vary in age, starting from 4 going all the way up to about 10. We see their lessons, from the basics of learning to read and write, to tobogganing in the snow and baking pancakes.

• Characters •
In my opinion, it's the characters that really make this such an enjoyable film to watch. Since it's a documentary I'm guessing that it's not scripted, but the children always seem at ease with the cameras around. Even though the documentary doesn't span that long - one academic year - you do grow to love the children and inevitably you see them grow and develop. The interactions, amongst themselves as pupils, with their parents when doing homework and with M. Lopez himself are really touching at times and often quite humorous too. The younger children were perhaps my favourite because they were just soooo cute, in particular Jojo. The older members of the group are very interesting to watch too, as they struggle to come to terms with the fact that they have to grow up and move on to pastures new. In order to pass on to 'collège' which I guess is the equivalent of middle school in England (years 5-8 ish) pupils must pass the year. If they don't, they have to resit as part of the French schooling system. M. Lopez becomes much more than their teacher, he helps them realise their potential and is someone they love and respect and someone they would want to always be their teacher.

• Direction •
I really do have no idea about the immense thought and work that goes in to directing a piece like this, so I probably don't fully appreciate what a great job Nicolas Philibert does. Needless to say that he does do a fantastic job. The documentary-style is pretty much what you'd expect, we just observe M. Lopez teaching the children but the director does help to bring out the characters with his choice of shots. for instance we often see the children in shot while we just hear the teacher talking to them, particularly the very cheeky Jojo, who seems to be able to use anything and everything to distract him from doing his work!
Since it is a documentary we do see a sort of interview-style scene where Georges is actually talking to camera and someone behind camera is asking him questions. I thought that this was an important inclusion as we get to see what is behind M. Lopez's approaches to teaching. It's obvious well before this point that he's very passionate about what he does, but this scene really reinforces that.
I love the scenes where we get to see what life in a rural French village is like - the minibus picking up pupils to take them to the one-roomed schoolhouse, the cows being brought in, just add that little touch. Music is often played over these scenes, it's not intrusive as it only plays over these scenes and not over dialogue.

• Language •
Dialogue brings me on to an important point about this documentary. It is about a French school, the teacher and all twelve of the pupils are French, so of course it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that the language spoken throughout is French. I urge you, do not let this put you off.

First of all, there are subtitles in English. Again these won't intrude on the film in anyway and if they help you to follow what is going on then it's worth having them on. If you fancy a bit of a challenge, trying watching without - either way the option of them is there if you want it. Having been to a French school with pupils around the age of 6-11 I know that understanding children speaking is not always the easiest of tasks, especially if they mumble, are upset or speak quickly, not to mention if they use some kind of slang. But the French used throughout the film is not that difficult to understand at all. I have played with and without subtitles and found the parents to be the hardest people to understand in one particular dialogue where they were reciting times tables and arguing about some maths homework. This was mostly due to the fact that I was put off by the speed with which they were reciting the maths - I think to be honest they could have been speaking in English and I would have found it hard to follow. To me, maths is the most foreign language of all, but there we go.

• My Opinion •
I couldn't recommend this film more if I tried, I really enjoyed watching it, it made me laugh, it made me feel quite sad in places too, but it really touched me. If you want to know more about French culture and the way of life in French rural areas then it's worth watching, if you want to improve your French then I definitely recommend it. Even if you speak no French at all I would still recommend it as you can easily understand with the subtitles on.

• Additional Info •
Should you want to buy this film, you can do so on DVD - on amazon.co.uk it's currently selling at £7.99 - that's a clearance price and a complete bargain, as I paid £19.99 for it in HMV.

It has a U classification.
 

Pictures for the review

Display pictures

M. Lopez at work...