Newton Ramalho
colunaclaquete@gmail.com - www.colunaclaquete.blogspot.com - @colunaclaquete
Movie of the Week: "Once In A Lifetime"
The movie industry has many films based on education, and groups of
unruly teenagers who are "saved" by a brilliant teacher, like
anthologique "To Sir With Love," starring Sidney Poitier. But it is
always good to see successful stories like the one shown in the excellent
French film "Once In A Lifetime" ( "Les Heritiers", 2014).
The Lycée Léon Blum is a French public school like many others, located
in the banlieue, the suburb of Paris, a poor region, inhabited mainly by
immigrants and descendants.Unlike countries such as Canada, where immigration
is very selective, France historically has housed countless groups of
immigrants from many places of the world, notably from its former African and
Asian colonies.
So this is the small universe of one of the rooms of the junior year of
high school, formed by young people from different ethnicities, backgrounds and
religions. The group, one of the most problematics in school, is under the
direction of Ms. Guéguen (Ariane Ascaride), which also gives lessons of
History, Geography and History of Art.
The living is not easy, especially with the clash of cultures. France,
very proud of separation between religion and State, since the Revolution of
1789, has laws preventing religious expression in schools and public buildings,
including crucifixes and the veil worn by Muslims, what is illustrated in one
of the opening scenes of movie.
The dissatisfaction of young people is exacerbated by the age where the
last infantile traits still shock with perspective of the arrival of adulthood.
It is in this ambiance of permanent tension that Ms. Guéguen arrives
with a proposal that at first sounds like an impossible task.She proposes to
her students the participation in the National Concours of Resistance and
Deportation, exploring the theme "children and adolescents in the Nazi
concentration camps."
The first reaction of the students is of stupefaction. Everyone knew
vaguely that World War II had been against the Nazis, a few knew about the
Holocaust, but no one imagined the real involvement of France, especially in
regard to the subject.
Accepting the job with reluctancy, they researched the way they were
used to: copying pages of Wikipedia and Google images.Encouraged by Ms. Guéguen
and by librarian Yvette (Geneviève Mnich), who always answer their questions
with more questions, the young people gradually plunged deeply into the theme,
discovering the victims, their testimonies, and what happened to them after
war.
Some scenes of the film are anthological, such as the testimony of Léon
Zyguel, a Holocaust survivor who died shortly after the film's release.To some
concepts were given prominence, as the idea that every image has a purpose, and
that no joke is innocent, especially when it exploits race, religion or sexual
orientation.
It is possible that at this point, the reader is thinking "I've
seen this movie before". If he thought about "Freedom Writers,"
starring Hilary Swank, it is not without reason. But the commonalities are poor
schools, challenging classes and research related to World War II - as well as
creative and stimulating teachers.
In the case of the French school, in addition to the fact of been real
and be portrayed with remarkable fidelity, the results were surprising because
they not only got the prize, but most of the class finished school with
distinction.One of these students, Ahmed Dramé, who dreamed of making movies,
was the one who sought the director Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar with the idea
of the film and the script was co-written by them.Ahmed and his sister Koro
also acted in the roles of Malik and Léa.
When we see these cases of student success, the question is inevitable:
Will we could do the same in Brazil? It is hard to say, because the educational
reality of Brazil is totally different from France or the United States, places
where public education is practically universal .
Although the problems of young people are universal, even more in a
globalized world, in Brazil public education is poor and destined for the
poors, with the exception of federal education institutes.
But regardless of rich or poor, young people lack the incentive to
critical thinking, to questions that have no easy answers, to needs that go
beyond the ESMS and a place in a public university.
As said in an interview with Professor Anne Anglès, the true master who
was lived on the screens by Ariane Ascaride, "To me, the goal was that
those students pass from "to have" to "to be". I wanted
them to learn to be and be together, collectively, to appropriate the values
of those peoples who were lucky to survive this mass crime, this genocide,
because it shakes with people, even being extremely heavy. "
"Once In A Lifetime" is a very interesting film, totally
different from these silly high school movies, showing how the intolerance that
surrounds and suffocates us day to day can be alleviated with the simple and
good idea that we are together in the same boat and that unity and
understanding are still the best way to solve problems.
Original title: "Les Heritiers"
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