'Monsieur Lazhar' Film Review

The nominated movie for an Oscar in Best Foreign Language, Monsieur Lazhar, not only tells an emotional and relatable story but also addresses important life questions. After the suicide of their beloved English teacher, Martine, the middle-school students learn to grieve in the face of a new and unfamiliar teacher Mr. Bachir Lazhar (Mohamed Fellag). Mr. Lazhar does not know the relationship the students had with Martine but he too is facing grief and consequently relates to their feelings. Monsieur Lazhar is a powerful movie that questions the construct of grief and the ways in which people can address death.

The movie begins with a staggering scene in which a young boy, Simon (Émilien Néron), discovers his teacher (Martine) hanging dead from the ceiling as he is trying to deliver milk to the classroom. Staggering yet efficient, the movie introduces a difficult subject (death) to the audience immediately and sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Quickly soon after, Mr. Lazhar is introduced and volunteers to be Martine's replacement. In the first few weeks of his teaching, Mr. Lazhar and the students are still trying to get to know each other but in the process, Martine's death hangs in the air and creates an unyielding tension among the students and the teachers. Alice (Sophie Nélisse) is a student and is  friends with Simon but their relationship is tenuous now that their beloved teacher is dead. For a majority of the movie, Alice withholds her emotions from Simon and even Mr. Lazhar but it becomes clear she blames Simon for her teacher's death. Meanwhile, Mr. Lazhar's story slowly unfolds to the audience that is an Algerian refugee. During his court sessions the audience learns he once had a wife and two children but were killed in a fire. Mr. Lazhar believes their deaths were not accidental and in fact, were a result of the continuous death threats his wife received due to her controversial and political book. This scene is short though and does not evoke as emotion as it could.
Despite this, Mr. Lazhar is experiencing grief along side his students. 

Simon, in particular, feels extremely guilty for Martine's death. It is discovered during a teacher conference that Martine tutored Simon and even gave him a hug one day when he was struggling. Although, Simon did not like that and came-up with the lie that Martine kissed him. Since any form of touching is not allowed in the school environment and was addressed to Mr. Lazhar by the principle, it can be concluded that Martine's job was impacted from Simon's lie. Thus, Simon feels as though he added to Martine's pain and influenced her decision to hang herself during the day he was delivering milk. Mr. Lazhar addresses Simon's quilt along with the rest of the class by exclaiming it was not their fault and that a classroom is "a place full of life." At the end of the movie, Mr. Lazhar uses the metaphor of metamorphosis to help his students process life and death. He writes a fable in which he allows the students to review that is about a caterpillar that never turned into a butterfly. Soon after, Mr. Lazhar is fired for the principle did not know he was a refugee and did not agree with the way he was addressing death.

Monsieur Lazhar is an emotionally gripping movie that addresses death in a classroom. It raises multiple questions which include: is there a proper way to address death in a younger population? what role does the teacher play in helping them grieve? and where is the line between raising and teaching children? Something that I admired about this movie is the school brought in a psychologist to help the students grieve. I was not expecting that for some reason and I appreciated how the school provided someone else for the students to talk to. Although, the psychologist's role was not highlighted as much as I thought it would. Instead, the movie highlighted Mr. Lazhar's impact on the students- which I also appreciate. There were parts in the movie that felt there could have been more information on though. Namely, Mr. Lazhar's family. The scene in which he described his family's death sounded extremely traumatic and yet his behavior for the rest of the movie did not reflect what I imagined he would be experiencing. This of course brings up the idea of grieving death. No one grieves the same way. Although, I believe it is important for people to understand grief and to take comfort in knowing a person's death is not their fault. In the case of the students, I would imagine that for most of them this is the first time they experienced death and understanding the feelings that come after is an important aspect of life that everyone must learn at some point. 

I would give this movie a three and half stars out of five. I appreciated the difficult theme Monsieur Lazhar addressed but I wished they handled certain situations better. Namely, I wish the writers gave more background information about Mr. Lazhar and I also wish they developed Mr. Lazhar's and Alice's relationship more. The ending with them hugging did not seem as dramatic as it could have been because they did not explore their similarities to a large degree. Despite this, the movie had controversial topics and all great movies have controversial topics interwoven into their stories. Absolutely watch Monsieur Lazhar if you are not feeling like watching a comedy.