Être et Avoir (2002)

Film: Être et Avoir

Director: Nicolas Philibert

Country: France

Released: May 2002

Runtime: 104 minutes

Genre: Documentary

Studio: Les Films du Losange

Influenced: Laura Poitras, Heddy Honigmann, Andrew Rossi, Chloé Zhao, Kirsten Johnson

What's the greatest film about teaching? Hollywood has a long tradition of movies featuring inspirational teachers, including Sidney Poitier in To Sir, With Love (1967); Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society (1989); Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds (1995); Richard Dreyfuss in Mr Holland's Opus (1995); and Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson (2006). But, for me, no country does films about teaching like France. Within a decade, from Bertrand Tavernier's Ça Commence Aujourd'hui (1999) to Laurent Cantet's Entre Les Murs (2008), France produced three incredible movies about the challenges of teaching in urban, suburban and rural communities. Arguably the pick of the three, not least for its cinematic beauty, is Être et Avoir, set in a one-room schoolhouse in the Auvergne region. Often films about teaching focus on the challenges of inner-city schools, but Nicolas Philibert's documentary provides an intimate and poignant look at the struggles of being the only teacher in a single-class, rural school of mixed-age pupils.

Nicolas Philibert conceived the idea for the film after reading an article about a small, countryside school facing closure owing to a lack of students. Intrigued by the teacher-student dynamic and the unique challenges of rural education, Philibert decided to make a documentary capturing the daily life of the school, partly in the cinema verité tradition of Jean Rouch. The aims of this tradition include the most faithful reproduction of reality possible, and the director being an impartial and impassive witness to events. Philibert's unobtrusive filmmaking style avoids narration and interviews, allowing events to unfold naturally. Être et Avoir primarily focuses on the interactions between the teacher, Georges Lopez, and his students. Lopez, a dedicated and caring teacher, teaches a range of subjects to children aged from 4 to 11 in a single classroom, and the film follows the students over the course of a single school year as they go about their daily activities and lessons, both at school and at home. 

The care we see Lopez take with his garden is a reflection of the patience and empathy he shows to the children. Like the kids he teaches, Lopez also comes from a poor rural background, so he understands well the needs and challenges of his pupils, and Philibert's shots of the surrounding countryside and animals give us a strong sense of the isolation of rural life in the Auvergne region. As well as setting the scene, these shots of nature are also a pacing device, allowing for moments of quiet reflection, while also being symbolic of the concept of how education, like life on a farm, is part of a larger long-term cycle of growth, learning and renewal. The director also gives us an insight into the home life of the children, including a farming family all gathered round the kitchen table doing their best to work on arithmetic homework. Être et Avoir is such a powerful film because we begin to feel invested in the lives of the children, most notably the charismatic Jojo. Marie and Jojo using the photocopier is one of my favourite scenes in the movie.

Être et Avoir received widespread critical acclaim and won several awards, including the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival. The film also received a nomination for the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2003. Its success lay in its ability to depict in a simple, yet profound way the essence of learning and growing up. Lopez initially had reservations about his class being the subject of the documentary, and eventually agreed, but the success of the film caused him to have second thoughts. The controversy surrounding Lopez and the families being misled about the director's commercial intentions for the film cuts to a key issue around documentary filmmaking – should the participants get a share of the profits? It's an ongoing ethical dilemma in cinema; while some would argue that people whose lives and stories are at the core of a successful documentary should receive fair compensation, others would argue that introducing financial incentives could compromise the authenticity of the documentary. All that aside, Être et Avoir is a powerful meditation on the importance of education and the crucial role played by dedicated teachers.