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Monsieur Lazhar by Philippe Falardeau

2012; American Association of Teachers of French; Volume: 86; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tfr.2012.0083

2329-7131

Miléna Santoro,

Linguistic and Sociocultural Studies

un choix pourrait en effet laisser croire qu’aucune considération esthétique ne préside au travail du réalisateur. Les mauvaises langues affirmeront sans doute que son autobiographie est en cela le fidèle reflet de son œuvre: vivante mais guère inspirée. University of Pennsylvania François Massonnat FALARDEAU, PHILIPPE, réal. Monsieur Lazhar. Int. Mohammed Fellag, Sophie Nélisse, Émilien Néron. micro_scope, 2011. Algerian-born playwright and comedian Fellag has starred in some dozen films since the eighties, and his 2011 one-man show, Petits chocs des civilisations, reflects almost two decades of self-imposed exile and cultural adaptation in France. In Monsieur Lazhar, Fellag’s turn in the title role as an Algerian refugee teaching in a Montreal elementary school is thus a compelling portrait of forced migration, resonant of his own life experience. Based on the play Bashir Lazhar (2002) by Évelyne de la Chenelière, who cameos in the film, Monsieur Lazhar received nine nominations for both the Jutra and Genie Awards. It was also warmly received in the festival circuit, winning several prizes, and garnering an Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, the second consecutive year Canada’s nomination was a finalist (2011’s contender, Villeneuve’s Incendies, is reviewed in the French Review 85.4). Anchored by Fellag’s performance, the story of Monsieur Lazhar, whose overdetermined name, as he explains, means “bringer of good news” (Bashir) and “luck” (Lazhar), is in fact one of trauma and loss—both personal and collective, given that the former teacher of the fourth-graders he inherits hanged herself in their classroom. That she too bears a name invoking luck (Lachance) is one of the film’s more obvious ironies. After such an unfortunate catalyst, the narrative depicts how Lazhar manages to connect with these children through his understanding of their grief, which transcends considerable cultural and even linguistic barriers. Indeed, Quebec’s contemporary cultural heterogeneity is highlighted by an amusing scene where the students explain their hyphenated names that reveal familial experiences of migration and cultural mixité. Falardeau’s judicious use of humor in portraying cultural difference and personal foibles is counterbalanced by moments of uncompromising lucidity, as when Lazhar rejects a colleague’s facile romanticizing of his exile by pointing out how immigrants often face living with illegality, poverty, unemployment and uncertainty. The film is most compelling , however, in its development of the relationship between students like Simon and Julie, both of whom saw the suspended body of their former teacher, and Lazhar, who encourages them to find words for their pain, and who finds ways to console them despite the institutional interdiction of physical contact between teachers and pupils. Simon’s ultimate confession of his survivor’s guilt finds a parallel with Lazhar’s own testimony at his refugee hearing, for his story must also be told for his legal status to be legitimized. Language is thus shown to be a means of self-affirmation and narrative recovery, allowing for something new to emerge, like the butterfly from the chrysalis, an image applicable to both the children and the refugee who must remake himself, sometimes under false pretenses, in a society where qualifications matter more than the human capacity for caring. Reviews 373 Falardeau’s deft direction of the child actors and his casting of Fellag in an uncharacteristically dramatic role in this film are a testimony to his skill and vision , as is the screenplay that the filmmaker brilliantly adapted from the original play, in which Lazhar was the only character, speaking in monologue. Falardeau’s experience in working with children, particularly in C’est pas moi, je le jure! (2008), and his previous explorations of the theme of identity, specifically in La moitié gauche du frigo (2000), a theme complicated by the issue of migration in Congorama (2006) and the documentary Pâté chinois (1997), can certainly be seen as contributing factors to the emotional depth and authenticity Monsieur Lazhar achieves. It is this latter film, however, that has propelled Falardeau into an elite new generation of world class Quebec directors, and it is this eminently teachable, inspiring story of cross-generational and cross-cultural communication...