BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND! OSCAR NOMINEE MONSIEUR LAZHAR!
SEE IT ON THE BIG SCREEN!!
DATE: SAT JUNE 9TH
TIME: 8 pm SHARP!!
WHERE: DOLLAR CINEMA
JUST MEET AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE THEATRE
6900, boulevard Decarie,
MONTREAL, QC H3X 2T8
[masked]
COST: FREE!!!!!
Parking is FREE!!
Easy to get to by Metro
Consenus:
This is back by popular demand. There have been so many requestS to show this film again. For those that missed it we are giving you a second chance.

synoposis:
MONSIEUR LAZHAR


Mr. Lazhar by Philippe Falardeau is on the lips of all moviegoers this year. Acclaimed and awarded around the world, it leaves the public and the critics were unanimous: the film is not to be missed. Moreover, Mr. Lazhar was chosen to represent Canada at the Oscars 2012. In Montreal, a primary school teacher died suddenly. Hearing the news in the newspaper, Bashir Lazhar, an Algerian of 55 years (played by Fellag, Algerian star actor here in top form), knocks on the door of the school to offer his services as a replacement. Quickly hired to fill the void left by the missing, the immigrant entered the Quebec labor market in an institution in crisis while swimming itself in full personal tragedy. Upon arrival, the cultural gap between Bashir and his class is emerging, as he offers children a dictation out of their reach, taken from Honoré de Balzac. Gradually, Bashir learns more about a group of schoolchildren also shaken endearing. Among them, Alice and
Simon, two charismatic student witnesses an incident taboo, are particularly affected by the death of their teacher. As the class begins a healing process, no one at school do not suspect the painful past of Bashir is likely expulsion from the country at any time. Adapted from a play by Evelyne de la Chenelière, Mr. Lazhar is pictures in the meeting of two worlds and the power of speech. After Congorama and It's Not Me, I Swear!, Philippe Falardeau social returns to the cinema that marked the beginning (the left half of the fridge). Through the emotional journey of children and adults, the filmmaker follows with humor and sensitivity of a humble man willing to transcend his own loss to help students to overcome the silence that Emmure. "Really really a very very beautiful movie! " MARC-ANDRÉ LUSSIER, PRESS "Magnificent. Fellag great " -MANON DUMAIS, SEE "A film of subtlety and humanity, simple control. " -Odile Tremblay, DUTY "A poignant drama about
childhood, tenderness and this sacred place that should be in school" -Nathalie Petrowski, PRESS REPRESENTATIVE OF CANADA TO OSCARS 2012 AUDIENCE AWARD AND PRICES VARIETY-FESTIVAL Locarno Film, August 2011 BEST CANADIAN FILM - INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL TORONTO, September 2011 AND SPECIAL JURY PRIZE AUDIENCE AWARD - INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL FRENCH DE NAMUR, October 2011 AUDIENCE AWARD (GRAND PRIX HYDRO-QUEBEC) AND PRICES JURY AND COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY - International Film Festival in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, October 2011
Monsieur LazhaR
Ebert Rating: ***½

By Roger Ebert



In an opening scene of "Monsieur Lazhar," it's Simon's day to pick up cartons of milk and deliver them to his Montreal fourth-grade classroom before the school day begins. Looking in through the door, he realizes that his teacher has hung herself from a ceiling pipe. Only one other student sees this before the teachers usher all the students back into the playground.

This incident, reported in a Quebec newspaper, is the inspiration for Bachir Lazhar (Fellag) to present himself at the school principal's office and volunteer to teach the class. He is a legal immigrant from Algeria, he explains, where he taught primary school for 19 years. The principal is Mme. Vaillancourt (Danielle Proulx), who like most school administrators these days, is rigid in conforming to the rules. Hiring Monsieur Lazhar is a bit of an excursion for her, but he is a well-spoken, presentable man and makes a good impression.

"Monsieur Lazhar," which begins in the dead of winter, follows his work in the classroom all the way through until summer. During that time, he — and we — get to know the students, who are generally cheerful and well-behaved, and get on well with their new teacher. They are assumed to be traumatized by their teacher's suicide, and a psychologist is assigned to spend closed-door sessions with the class. We, and Monsieur Lazhar, are closed out of these sessions, but Lazhar on his own tells the students some gentle truths and assures them it wasn't their fault.

For this and other transgressions, he is criticized by the principal; to follow the rules, a teacher seems hardly allowed to be human. A student throws a paper ball at a classmate, and Lazhar, standing right there, taps him sharply on the head. This, too, is wrong; teachers are forbidden to touch students in any way. God forbid they would hug one, or pat one on the shoulder. I now realize that when Sister Ambrosina in the first grade at St. Mary's in Champaign snapped us with a strict fingernail it was brutality, although I always knew why I had it coming.

Lazhar has some challenges. French is spoken differently in Algeria and Quebec — and in France too, perhaps. He dictates some Balzac for the students to write down and is informed by them it is "prehistoric." He finds a sympathetic fellow teacher to confide in, and perhaps she also rather likes him.

There is a great deal more to be known about Monsieur Lazhar's personal life, which I won't reveal. It adds an additional dimension to the trauma of the students. Simon in particular blames himself for the suicide; the dead teacher must have known he would bring the milk to class that day, he reasons, and must have known he would find her hanging body. Why else would a teacher choose to hang herself in her schoolroom?

It's a question without an answer. One of the qualities of "Monsieur Lazhar," which was one of this year's Academy Award nominees in the foreign-language film category, is that it has no simple questions and simple answers. Its purpose is to present us with a situation, explore the people involved and show us a man who is dealing with his own deep hurts.