Monsieur Lazhar (2011)

2011

Directed by: Philippe Falardeau

Music: Martin Léon

Starring: Mohamed Felag, Sophie Nelisse, Émilien Néron, 

Danielle Proulx, Brigitte Poupart, Jules Philip

Once in a while, you come across a film by accident. You have never heard of it before, but you pick it up because it seems interesting. This was one such. My husband picked it up from our local library, and I must say that I'm a bit ashamed that I hadn't heard of a film that was one of the final five nominees for the Oscars in the Best Foreign Film category that year. Unfortunately, it ran up against A Separation. In any other year, I think, this would definitely have been an Academy Award winner. 

It is just another day for the school children, who are playing outside one winter morning, until it is time for the morning bell. One 6th grade student, Simon (Émilien Néron), is reminded by his friend Alice L'Écuyer (Sophie Nelisse) that it is his turn to collect the morning milk from the school refrigerator. 

 

And so, Simon runs off to do so, only to discover that their teacher, Martine Lachance, has decided to kill herself in the classroom. Simon, and Sophie, who also peers into the locked classroom before she is rushed outside by a teacher, are traumatised by what they see, even as the other students struggle with their grief at the death of a much-loved teacher.

Unfortunately, the school cannot think of anything to help the children move forward from this experience, except to bring in a professional counsellor. They remove the late teacher's belongings from the classroom, and repaint the room but the teacher's spirit continues to loom large over them. 

 

It is under these rather unsavoury circumstances that the school, desperate to find a substitute teacher, is offered the services of an Algerian immigrant, Bazhir Lazhar. Having read of the teacher's suicide in the papers, he offers to teach at the school in whatever position the principal, Madame Vaillancourt (Danielle Proulx) deems fit. 

He is a Canadian resident, he assures her, and he has been a teacher for 19 years in his native land. Desperate to find someone eligible, she hires him on the spot. 

His first lesson is not quite a success. The children are still suffering from the shock of losing their teacher, and his dictation of Balzac's Le Peau de Chagrin leaves the children bewildered. 

 

The children find his methods strange. He rearranges the desks into regular rows, gives them dictation, and enforces discipline in a manner that is verboten. Yet, despite the cultural chasm between his students and him, he begins to draw closer to his students. There is something hidden in his past that makes him attuned to the children's feelings. Attempting to draw them out, he is warned that the 'experts' will talk about death, and grief. He should concentrate on teaching. He had already run into problems when he smacks a child on his back for being naughty in class.

In today's touchy, over-protective culture, there is zero tolerance for touch, warns Madame Vaillancourt. Teachers in schools have to remember - no physical contact. They are not allowed to hug a young child even if he is crying. How this works to the detriment of the students is evident when the gym teacher remarks that he can no longer teach the kids to use the pommel horse; so all he does is to make the children run around the gym, leading them to think he is an idiot.  

As it turns out, Monsieur Lazhar is not a teacher at all. Neither is he a legal resident. Applying for refugee status, it turns out that his wife and children were murdered in Algeria; it is this trauma that makes him sensitive to the children's needs to express their grief. 

So when Alice uses a class assignment to write about her unresolved grief at her teacher's death and her inexplicable decision to end her life at school, or when Simon is found in possession of a disturbing photograph of the dead teacher, or when Victor (Vincent Millard) mentions that his grandfather committed suicide (but they knew why), Monsieur Lazhar is sensitive to the confusion and pain that his students feel over an unexplained incident that traumatises their young lives. 

Yet, he is consistently told that he should not make waves. That the grief counsellor would deal with the children, that he doesn't know the culture of the place that he is in, or anything at all about the teacher who died. But when the children themselves bring up the topic, he is loath to shut them up. Especially when it turns out that many of the children blame Simon for the teacher's death, and more disturbingly, he blames himself.  

 

Monsieur Lazhar deal with losses of many different kinds - through death, through exile, through grief. Based on Bashir Lazhar, a one-character play by Évelyne de la Chenelière (who also appears in a cameo as Alice's mother), director Philippe Falardeau added in the sub-plot about Simon to develop the story further. The film deals with death, and its denial. When tragedy strikes, we are wont to push it under the carpet, not talking about it, hoping that the less that is said, the sooner everything will be back to 'normal'. As one of the students, Marie-Frédérique (Marie-Ève Beauregard), says in the film, "It is not we who are traumatised. It is the adults."

 

As the children come to terms with death in their own ways, it is their teacher, Monsieur Lazhar, who travels that journey with them. It is his unspoken empathy for what they are going through that leads them to spontaneously bring the topic up for discussion. It is he who inspires them to think their way out of their grief, and it is he who provides the support that they need, whether it is Simon being told that it is not his fault that Martine died, or Alice who, at the end of the film needs a hug. In fact, she not only needs a hug, she asks for one. It is a lovely (and ironic) shot - it is a hug that set the train of events that culminated in Martine's suicide in motion. 

 

For Alice to hug the (male) teacher therefore, is an overt act of resistance, an act that is at once taboo and a transgression in today's society. In that one moment is the realisation of how important it is for a child to have an adult she can trust. 

 

Directed with an honesty and a subtlety that does not allow for an outpouring of emotion but is still powerful nevertheless, Monsieur Lazhar does not end on an 'all is well' ending that Hollywood likes to promote. The ends are not tied up in lovely pink bows and rainbows, but like the rest of the film, there is a sense that this is how it must be, and a quiet hope that everyone will move on, now that they have actually said goodbye - which Martine, the disturbed teacher failed to do. Some things are indeed meant to end before their time, and Philippe Falardeau deals with them with compassion, restraint and understanding.

The acting is excellent, both from the students and the supporting cast (the headmistress Madame Vaillancourt, Monsieur Lazhar's colleague Claire (Brigitte Poupart, and the gym teacher Gaston (Jules Philip) should be specifically mentioned) and mostly from Mohamed Felag as Bazhir Lazhar. He is an unassuming character trying to make the best of a horrible situation - he has already lost his wife and children to violent death; by the end of the film, he has also lost his country. He is dealing not only with grief but also unsympathetic immigration officials who keep bringing up the deaths of his family. In his quietness, one sees both deep mourning and quiet acceptance of his plight. 

Sophie Nelisse is a revelation as Alice, the young girl who has an older-than-her-age understanding of matters that should be beyond her ken. Her face and eyes do the talking as she reads out, unemotionally, her essay about the death of her teacher. She raises the most pertinent questions about that death, and is easily the voice of the children. Articulate and emotional, she understands and is able to lay bare her emotions in a way that makes us understand how much we misunderstand or ignore what our children comprehend about death. 

Émilien Néron shines as Simon, the boy troubled by his teacher's death and his seeming responsibility for her actions. His final breakdown is as much a shock as it is a catharsis - not only for him but for everyone else. The taboo against discussing the tragedy has been broken, and it is easier now to deal with what is in the open than hide it as a shameful secret that must be talked about only in hushed whispers. 

What I liked about the film was that the reason for the teacher's suicide is never revealed. It is not important. What is important is that she died by her own hand, and that it affected her colleagues and her students and even the substitute teacher in myriad ways. The grief that is felt, the questions that are raised, the emotions that are evoked all rise organically from the narrative and the acting, and not once is the audience manipulated to feel a certain way - we become a part of the narrative that is playing out in front of us, and what emotions we feel grow out of a shared experience. The ending is as humorous and bitter-sweet as the rest of the film, the only way a movie such as this could have ended.