Tre Et Avoir (2002)

Directed by: Nicolas Philibert | 104 minutes | family, documentary | With: Georges Lopez, the schoolchildren of Saint-Etienne sur Usson

Anyone who is acutely aware of the common misery of school factories, metal detectors and teacher shortages will step into a warm bath of romance and nostalgia when seeing ‘Être et avoir’. This rustic village school in the mountains of the Massif Central seems to take us back to an Arcadian world when everything was still in order and unspoiled. Instead of the usual images of a powerless and half overwrought teacher, threatened by children and weighed down by existence, we see the perfect schoolmaster at work with his little clouds of children. The film is framed by three successive seasons, with impressive atmospheric images of this tranquil part of France.

The film camera is completely absorbed in the furniture; neither Lopez nor the kids seem aware of it. Maker Philibert films Lopez’s traditional way of teaching and the open-mindedness of the children without interference. Initially, the film mainly records the fortunes of the individual children, in the classroom and at home on the farm, but gradually shifts to the human being Lopez and his relationship with the children. As a spectator you are tossed back and forth between emotion and laughable situations. The film gains in depth in the second half as we witness the underlying personal drama of some of the children and that of Lopez himself. The individual conversations between Lopez and the children, and the final goodbye at the end of the film, remain etched in the memory.

With this, ‘Être et avoir’ also seems to be saying goodbye to the innocence of a village school in a rural, protected world. Not only do the children go to secondary school in the distant city after the summer, the village school itself will soon cease to exist in a countryside that is becoming increasingly depopulated. It leaves in the viewer a feeling of melancholy; this film are the last images of a world that is disappearing. Typical for this are the events after the film came out. Its smashing success led to tourists from all over the country flocking to Saint-Etienne sur Usson. The lawn in front of the school was transformed into a parking lot. Busloads of day trippers chased the children, begging for photos and autographs. The parents decided to keep the children at home as much as possible.