Les Choristes
2004 Comedy Drama
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Credits
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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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