A story about grief beautifully shot in cloudy soft tones with a wide sense of light and space, almost heavenly, the Quebecois film "Monsieur Lazhar" manages deep mourning and acceptance, somehow hopeful in its expression of the quiet reality of what is, despite how much we wish it were otherwise. A shell-shocked Quebec elementary school class suffering the wake of their teacher's abrupt suicide is treated to the foreign (Algerian) auspices of Monsieur Bachir Lazhar, revealed to the audience but not the other characters to be a political refugee dealing with a devastating loss of his own. His name means "Lucky" and "Tell the good news," which his plays off to his class as a simple greeting, but the good news of Bashir's presence in the classroom has much more to offer than just luck.
Lazhar's personal acquaintance with grief is a sort of gospel that allows him a much-needed perspective towards the care of his students, one of whom, Simon, blames himself for the suicide and another, Alice, who seems intractably aware of the finality of death and the permanence of its impact. Heart-wrenchingly convincing performances by Emilien Neron and Sophie Nelisse, respectively, capture the incredibly perceptive incredulity that accompanies childhood trauma. That still- reeling sense of grief is equally apparent in Mohamed Fellag's performance as Lazhar; the emotion of those big round eyes and recently- crumpled shoulders speaks volumes about the import of suffering, shadowed even in bright winter light.
"Monsieur Lazhar" deals with questions of justice and purpose in suffering, concluding in the untempered voices of the children that in some loss there is neither purpose nor justice, but the residue of the experience lingers in bittersweetness that might be named "hope." Ultimately Lazhar makes it okay that some things end before their time, expressing in a classroom fable both his goodbye to the children and his commission for their futures—one of hope and acceptance, which is grace from the inevitable pain of life as human.
Lazhar's personal acquaintance with grief is a sort of gospel that allows him a much-needed perspective towards the care of his students, one of whom, Simon, blames himself for the suicide and another, Alice, who seems intractably aware of the finality of death and the permanence of its impact. Heart-wrenchingly convincing performances by Emilien Neron and Sophie Nelisse, respectively, capture the incredibly perceptive incredulity that accompanies childhood trauma. That still- reeling sense of grief is equally apparent in Mohamed Fellag's performance as Lazhar; the emotion of those big round eyes and recently- crumpled shoulders speaks volumes about the import of suffering, shadowed even in bright winter light.
"Monsieur Lazhar" deals with questions of justice and purpose in suffering, concluding in the untempered voices of the children that in some loss there is neither purpose nor justice, but the residue of the experience lingers in bittersweetness that might be named "hope." Ultimately Lazhar makes it okay that some things end before their time, expressing in a classroom fable both his goodbye to the children and his commission for their futures—one of hope and acceptance, which is grace from the inevitable pain of life as human.