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Les Choristes
2004 Comedy / Drama
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Credits
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Director: Christophe Barratier
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Script: Georges Chaperot, René Wheeler, Noël-Noël, Christophe Barratier, Philippe Lopes-Curval
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Photo: Jean-Jacques Bouhon, Dominique Gentil, Carlo Varini
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Music: Christophe Barratier, Bruno Coulais, Jean-Philippe Rameau
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Cast: Gérard Jugnot (Clément
Mathieu),
François Berléand
(Rachin),
Kad Merad (Chabert),
Jean-Paul Bonnaire (La Père Maxence),
Marie Bunel (Violette Morhange),
Jean-Baptiste Maunier (Pierre Morhange),
Maxence Perrin (Pépinot),
Grégory Gatignol (Mondain),
Thomas Blumenthal (Corbin),
Cyril Bernicot (Le Querrec),
Simon Fargeot (Boniface),
Philippe Du Janerand (M. Langlois),
Didier Flamand (Pépinot adulte),
Jacques Perrin (Pierre Morhange adulte)
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Country: France
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Language: French
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Runtime: 97 min
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Aka: The Chorus
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Summary
One night, the celebrated orchestra conductor Pierre Morhange receives an unexpected visit
from Pépinot, someone he has not seen since his days in a grim boarding school
during the late 1940s. Pépinot brings with him the diary of Clément Mathieu,
the reluctant teacher who succeeded in changing both their lives. As they read the diary,
both men are transported back to 1949, to the day when Clément arrived at the school,
an establishment which was run with an iron fist by a despotic headmaster and where the
pupils ran riot. The new teacher is dismayed by the animosity and brutality that surrounds
him. But then he sees an opportunity to make a change for
the better – by introducing his class of miserable rebels to the beauty of choral music...
Review
For all its homespun simplicity, overly safe narrative style and occasional moments of
shameless sentimentality, Les Choristes is a
beautifully rendered and achingly effective film, one that will move virtually any audience
to tears. The story is a simple one, a kind of latter day
parable, in which a man who has failed in his own life manages to make a positive impact
on the lives on others. It is a heart-warming tale calculated
to play on the emotions but the whole thing is so lovingly crafted that only a soulless
block of disenchanted marble would fail to be moved by it. Gérard
Jugnot is perfectly cast as the film’s main character, playing the kind of modest, downtrodden
yet sympathetic hero which has become his trademark and which has earned him his reputation
as one of France’s best loved film actors of his generation. This
is the first full-length film to be directed by Christophe Barratier, a trained musician
whose uncle, Jacques Perrin, makes a brief appearance in the film.
© James Travers 2006
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