Powerful

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Similar to another film which I watched recently, THE CLASS, MONSIEUR LAZHAR deals with the goings-on in a classroom and the students' relationship with their teacher. However, in contrast to the previous film, MONSIEUR LAZHAR focuses on something that was a little more intimate and relatable to someone who isn't French or French-Canadian. After a schoolteacher commits suicide in her classroom, the students are left in shock as well as in need of a new teacher. The substitute comes in the form of an Algerian immigrant, Bachir Lazhar. Although it is initially hard for the students to warm up to him, eventually they do and he helps them in their process of grieving in addition to having some of his own. One thing that struck me was just how unassuming this film actually was. I kind of expected it to be along the same lines as THE CLASS, but it ended up being a lot more emotionally involving, which I really liked. Grief is something that we all go through at some point in our lives, and seeing how it affects children was an interesting approach to take. Of course, the performances were all excellent, even from the child actors. The clear standout is Fellag, who played Monsieur Lazhar himself. There was a certain warmth and honesty in his performance, as well as subtle shades of melancholy. You got the sense that he was really affected by what happened in his past, and just as affected by what happened to his students. I'd also like to mention the score, which was quite minimal. Outside of some classical music, there really wasn't a whole lot. More importantly, the score never interferes with the film's many emotional moments, allowing them to be powerful on their own. The only issue I took with the film was that there could have been a little more screen time or information about Monsieur Lazhar, given that the film is named after him. I also was caught off-guard at how abruptly the film ended. Not that I needed any more closure, but I was so invested in the story that I kind of wish there had been a little more. Overall, I'd say this was about on par with THE CLASS, maybe edging it out slightly. It certainly isn't light viewing, but it is rewarding in its own way.

The terrible incident suddenly happens in one Canadian elementary school during the mundane but shattering opening sequence of "Monsieur Lazhar." While the students enjoy the free time outside the building, one of the schoolteachers is found dead, hanging herself up in her classroom. The other teachers quickly cover this tragedy from the kids as soon as they come to know what happens, but it leaves her students in shock and grief as a consequence even after some time has passed and the classroom has been repainted.When the principal, Mademoiselle Vaillancourt(Brigitte Poupart), needs a substitute teacher for the deceased teacher's class, one man appears in front of her out of nowhere. He is an Algerian immigrant named Bachir Lazhar(Mohamed Fellag, who is credited as Fellag in the film), and he is willing to work as a substitute teacher. According to him, he was an elementary school teacher for 19 years in his country he has recently left from.Lazhar is a gentle, likable man, so he is instantly hired by Mme. Vaillancourt, and soon he meets the kids in the class assigned to him. The start is a little rocky at first because he sets his standard a little too high for his young students(he uses Balzac's novel for the dictation test) and there is the cultural gap between them. But, after some few quick adjustments, everything goes pretty smoothly as before in the class; the students like him, and so do the other teachers in the school.However, Lazhar discerns that there remain unresolved emotional matters beneath his class. He thinks his students should be more opened about how they feel about that incident. Although they get the periodic counseling sessions with a child psychiatrist, he believes he and other teachers should be more active about his students' problem. Most of the other teachers, including Mme. Vaillancourt, understand his point, but they are reluctant or object to Lazhar, because the rules like the zero- tolerance-for-touching policy have confined their roles so much that dealing with their students is like, as one teacher in the movie says, handling radioactive waste.one small but important fact about Lazhar provides a little tension to the story. It is revealed early in the film that he was not a teacher as he said. As the matter of fact, he has not even been accepted by the Canada Government yet because he is currently under the examination for deciding whether he can be judged as a political refuge seeking asylum.The movie suggests that Lazhar may understand what some of his students are struggling through as a person still in his personal grief, but it does not choose an easy way of handling this connection between M. Lazhar and the students, and neither does Mohamed Fellag, who gives a quiet honest performance as a humble decent man with lots of empathy. Though he is not really a teacher(but his deceased wife was), Lazhar has the right stuff to be a good teacher. He cares about the students, and he likes to be with them while helping them. Maybe he lacks some professional knowledge for teaching a class, but he can manage the difficult situations in his classroom tactfully with common sense. What he says to his students at one fragile moment is the universal truth that can applied to any school on the earth; "A classroom is a home for.. it's a place of friendship, of work, and of courtesy. A place full of life – where you devote your life"It should be mentioned that the kids in the movies give the believable performance as a group under Falardeau's direction. Even you do not know all of their names, each of them is a distinctive part of the class, and, how they generate the mild but busy dynamics together under the cool gaze of the camera in their classroom is nothing less than natural.Two young performers are especially notable as the crucial supporting characters in the story. Sophie Nélisse is a smart little girl more outspoken about the incident affecting her and others than her classmates. She is curious about her substitute teacher who comes from the other country, and she comes to like him probably more than anyone else. She becomes his close ally when he attempts to deal with the grief problem of the class, and Nélisse and Émilien Néron, who is also good as an anguished boy hurt a lot by the incident and the following guilt resulting from it, have a calm but intense scene with quiet emotional power.

This tightly written gem manages to pack a powerful emotional punch, while avoiding clichés and "cheap shots" - no easy task in a film that examines the emotions of 11/12-year-old schoolchildren and their teachers.The acting is for the most part charmingly low-key, and the action minimal, leaving the viewer wanting more, right up to the calmly controlled yet emotional ending (no spoilers here!). The movie also raises some interesting (and highly topical) issues about physical contact with children in the classroom or at summer camp (hugging, patting on the back, applying sunscreen, wiping a bloody nose, etc.). While one minor character expresses the popular viewpoint, the film contains several key scenes designed to let viewers make up their own minds.Highly recommended - I rarely give anything 8 out of 10!

Monsieur Lazhar follows a growing trend in Quebecois films getting more recognition at the Oscars, either nominated or making a shortlist, with Denys Arcand scoring a win. Monsieur Lazhar's nomination followed Incendies' the previous year, but I didn't think Monsieur Lazhar was as powerful as Incendies, and despite being Canadian, agree with the Academy's decision to hand the 2011 Foreign Language Oscar to Iran's A Separation instead.The premise of the movie sounds vaguely familiar- a new teacher steps into a school with students from another world, and inspires them. In this case, Lazhar is an Algerian refugee who teaches at a Quebecois school after a teacher hangs herself there, and must help the students cope. The students soon do well in spite of Lazhar's high expectations.The movie is slightly underdeveloped in explaining how Lazhar achieves his breakthrough in teaching the students, a little more puzzling considering he's not even a real teacher- his late wife in Algeria was. On that subject, I wasn't all that sympathetic to him for lying about those credentials, nor for slapping a student's head or acting insensitive about the deceased teacher from time to time (although we know very little about her, it's far likelier she was in a poor state of mental health rather than actively trying to harm the students).That said, Monsieur Lazhar is by no stretch of the imagination a bad movie, at times being spot on in its emotion. It just turns out that A Separation and Incendies brought out more powerful emotions.