‘To Be and to Have’

French director Nicolas Philibert directs this documentary on the profound relationships between a dedicated teacher and his pupils.

By: Elise Nakhnikian
   Even more than most movies, To Be and to Have is a different experience for everyone who sees it, since its leisurely pace and lack of narration leave plenty of room for your own thoughts to unfold. But one thing that’s likely to strike all us overstimulated babies of the ADHD age is the novelty of watching snippets of real life unfold in more or less real time.
   French director Nicolas Philibert is a poet of the documentary form. He specializes in beautiful, quiet films that show more than they tell, leading viewers far enough inside unfamiliar worlds so they can imagine how it might feel to live there. In the past, he’s explored the experience of being deaf (In the Land of the Deaf) and visited a psychiatric clinic where the residents put on an annual play (Every Little Thing). This time, his subject is how children learn and the profound relationships that can develop between a dedicated teacher and his pupils.
   After scouting about 300 settings, Philibert chose a one-room schoolhouse in the mountain-ringed farmland of the Auvergne region. It’s run by teacher Georges Lopez, whose calm, affirming affect and tranquil classroom fit Philibert’s style so well he might almost have invented them.
   The director uses music mercifully sparingly, relying on ambient sound to help root us in this particular place and time. As seen through his lens, things like stone walls and red tile roofs in the village, trees swaying like a chorus in the wind, and cattle huddled and lowing in a snowstorm all acquire substantial heft.
   In the classroom, the camera generally shoots from a kid’s-eye view, often capturing Lopez from the chin down or from behind. Sometimes it focuses on one student while the teacher talks to another, entering into the private world of a child who seems unaware of being observed.
   The kids all seem remarkably comfortable with the camera, although Philibert says in an interview on the DVD that some were not. To respect their desire for privacy, he concentrated on filming those who quickly grew comfortable with his small crew.
   Philibert followed several of these children outside the classroom, often to film them doing homework with the help of their parents. Those generally brief scenes tell us a lot about the families — including how much they all seem to want their children to get a good education. We learn a bit more from glimpses of the parents as they tend to their cattle or their farms. But Mr. Lopez, who lives in a room above the school, might have no life at all outside of the classroom, for all we see.
   Mr. Lopez’s halo acquired some tarnish in 2003, the year of the movie’s release, when the film’s surprising success led him to sue the director for a hefty share of the profits. Philibert, who ultimately won, protested that paying the teacher would violate a basic rule of documentary filmmaking. "I want to win this case for me and documentary making in general," he told Variety at the time. "If you start paying subjects, they become your employees."
   But the teacher, whose students call him "sir," comes off as quietly heroic in the film, treating even the youngest of his students with a gravity and respect that earns their trust. The dozen or so kids in the classroom range in age from about 4 to 12, so he teaches a wide range of academic skills, but the schoolwork is just the beginning.
   Mr. Lopez takes his students out of the classroom to enjoy the changing seasons, holding classes outside and leading an expedition by train to a golden field for a picnic lunch in the spring. In the winter, he heads a happy file of toboganners to a hill to go sledding, the older kids pulling the younger ones. He organizes a day trip to the middle school that the two oldest boys will go to the next year, presumably to make the relatively chaotic and bureaucratic environment less intimidating for the boys when they show up for their first day of school. He even teaches the class how to make omelettes.
   But perhaps the most important thing he teaches is how to get along in the world. He recites the same litany as any good parent: Don’t interrupt, don’t hit or call names, keep your promises, wash your hands, don’t stick pencils up your nose. He also talks frankly to the kids about their psychological conflicts, coaxing Olivier and Julien, the two oldest boys, into getting to the bottom of why they keep fighting; talking to the painfully shy Nathalie about the importance of communication; and teaching the anxious-looking little JoJo, who seems to have a hard time concentrating, about the importance of finishing what you’ve started.
   If this movie has a star aside from Mr. Lopez, it’s JoJo. His simian face, sweet temperament, nervous energy and transparent emotions make all your protective instincts stand up and salute. He seems to be a favorite of Mr. Lopez’s as well — or maybe he’s just one of the kids the filmmakers focused on because they didn’t mind being shot. In any case, when Mr. Lopez is saying his final goodbye to the children on the last day of school, you understand why he pretends not to let go of JoJo and Marie, another little charmer, joking, "These two I’ll keep."
   Despite the care he is taking to hide his pain from the children, we feel with a pang how hard it must be for this loving and beloved teacher to lose his kids for the summer — and, eventually, for good.
To Be and to Have will be screened in the Frick Building’s Kresge Auditorium, Princeton University, Feb. 14, 7:30 p.m., as part of William Lockwood’s 2005 Second Chance movie series. The film is in French with subtitles.