federico carrillo

The story of Monsieur Lazhar is really a parable about the potential of the human spirit to reach and help each other in times of pain and crisis. When a major crisis hits a school, the reactions are chaotic and irrational. It is a sharp portrait of the irrational school system we have allowed the politicians and bureaucrats to create, the illogical rules based on fear rather than on caring which rule the interactions between adults and children. The question raised by the film is complex: should we continue subjecting our children to the irrational and inhumane system we have? -one of rules, fear, litigation, distrust, and blame; or should we unlearn what the "experts" and politicians have said, and start imagining a new framework that integrates real, mature and healthy human relationships that the children can imitate and understand (like the one presented between Lazhar and the students) with the task of providing them with the tools they need in life to become mature adults?. The film has no end, because of its complexity. It is not a film for addicts to simplistic, linear movies with simplistic endings. They can look elsewhere. This is a film for those who have spent time living, working or thinking about the meaning and shape of education, and how good education (one that integrates the whole person with the negotiated contents of a curriculum) can really change the future by helping children to be aware of their full humanity. Wonderfully acted. I particularly loved the acting of the children, they were fantastic.