Monsieur Lazhar/Written and Directed by Philippe Falardeau - A great film from a great contempary play
Quite a long time ago, ever since I was doing these film reviews on this blog, I couldn’t help but realise that they are wonderful contempary plays that are being written. I can include French authors, along with John Patrick Shanley, the author of Pullitzer prize winning play Doubt .But right now, after seeing Monsieur Lazhar , I was astonished by the film’s sobriety and compelling and sound performances, through Falardeau’s still documentaristic screenwriting. Anything about this film makes anything in it to stand out, and almost to me, it’s a mesmerizing and contempary Canadian masterpiece, by a young master of cinema-vérité. It deals with force and power, the suicide of a schoolteacher who wanted to die in the most hurtful way possible, and that is in her own classroom, while the children were in recess. The whole action takes place in a small elementary school somewhere in Montreal, where every little class is a small Model U.N, many children from many countries, and all Cana...