The Chorus

This film is soooo nice. The young actors, who are not real actors, the producer just took a few little boys from the nearest school. They act so good, I've seen this film in europe, and it looks like it changed my life. The history just touched me right in the hard. And the soprano singer "Pierre Morhange" is so sensitive. I'm a fan of him. He sings in a choir in France, his voice is just a miracle, and he is just 13 years old! I wish that the film will do as much success as in Europe. I can listen to the CD all day long. I can't wait for it to come out in America, I hope that it will have enough money to go at the movie every week-end.

"La cage aux rossignols" ,released in 1945,was one of the last movies of the occupation days ."Les choristes" ,although they have transposed the action to the fifties,hints at it when a young brat breaks into "maréchal ,nous voilà!" ,anthem of those dark years.The question is:was it necessary to redo?Yes the songs are splendid and are likely to become part of the repertoire of all the French schools .Yes the boy who plays Morange mesmerizes the audience ,and like Brigitte Fossey ("jeux interdits" ) or Benoit Magimel ("la vie est un long fleuve tranquille" ) he may become an actor when he grows up. The original screenplay has undergone some changes:it has become a long flashback ,with an ending which focuses one more time on success and fame ,borrowing more from "Professor Holland's opus" than from Dreville's old flick.The rebel pupil's sister has become an unmarried mother,which was unthinkable in the Petain years.Producer Jacques Perrin -who has seen better days,artistically speaking- appears as the umpteenth version of the ugly duckling turned into a swan. And finally the Jugnot vehicle has the same drawbacks as its model:the kids become quickly much too quickly a heavenly choir ,andwe do know that, in both movies ,the young actors are choristers in real life.The characters remain cardboard and Gérard Jugnot is neither better nor worse than Noël-Noël . What's amazing is that generally "la cage aux rossignols" is dismissed as cheesy and maudlin (its rating is average) whereas its remake is praised to the skies.It's the same old song though.

A middle-aged musician, Clement Mathieu (Gerard Jugnot), arrives at a boarding school for delinquent boys, Fond de l'Etang (Rock Bottom), with fear about his ability to handle the job of teacher and supervisor. His fears become even more real when he meets the overbearing headmaster Rachin (Francois Berleand), a man who takes out his frustrations by dolling out excessive punishments to the children. This is the premise of The Chorus (Les Choristes), a skillfully acted but by-the-numbers effort that fails to deliver any real emotional substance. Mathieu discovers that some of the boys can sing very well, especially troublemaker Pierre Morhange (Jean-Baptiste Maunier) whose boy soprano voice has a purity that is almost angelic. The teacher pursues a relationship with Pierre's mother Violette (Marie Bunel) and encourages her to visit the school more often, but she falls in love with an engineer without considering Mathieu as a potential father for her son. The teacher molds the delinquent boys into a heavenly choir (without a great deal of trial and error) and develops a positive relationship with most of them that demonstrates the redemptive power of music and further frustrates the surly headmaster. Although I did find The Chorus entertaining and truly enjoyed some gorgeous music, most of the characters are well-worn stereotypes and the film does not explore any possibilities beyond its tried and true formula.

This movie was carefully crafted to suck in the gullible viewer who does not discriminate between the possible and the pretentious. Other reviewers have decried the formula of the heavy-handed headmaster, the easily led teachers, and the newcomer who comes with the fresh ideas to usurp the methods of the school. I went to a boarding school in England in 1949 so I remember what it was like. I know for sure that there was no way a motley group of boys, especially all from one class (and how different ages were assigned to one class escapes me) would be able to sing as was shown. From my childhood I remember the interminable time it took to achieve such a standard, and still we could not quite get there. Nice singing our course but so exploitive!

To Sir, With Love would look like stark British realism if placed next to this French treacle. All the clichés are in place: the troubled but decent boys; the overworked and cynical teachers; the harsh, almost sadistic, school administrator; the idealistic new staff member who wants to make a difference. You know the rest. The plot is not very carefully worked out and the whole enterprise has a slap-dash quality. Some subplots are begun and then just allowed to trail off. The acting is adequate throughout and the boys choir is nice to listen to, even as you doubt that a school of ordinary boys could possibly sound like that. This movie has gotten quite a bit of attention. It doesn't deserve any of it.

I'm sorry for the people who defends this movie, but it's a vulgar remake not just of Cage Aux Roussignols, even more than a hundred movies like this one. There's nothing new in the story, nothing fresh in the "mise en scene", nothing archetypal in the characters. The most sad thing i have seen in this movie is how mediocre is the end resolution when the guardian/music teacher goes away from the Fond D'Etang with the children saying him goodbye. The "mise en scene" is so bad that Barratier loose a great opportunity to make this moment very much emotive: the time, the rhythm, the actor direction, everything is wasted. A movie not much better than perhaps hundred more movies premiered last year. It don't deserves the Oscar.(Can somebody believe this movie has get a consideration and not House of Flying Daggers?)

"The Chorus (Les Choristes)" demonstrates that France is just as able to put out sentimental treacle as Hollywood, for those who thought the Gallic sensibility was inherently cynical, philosophical and intellectual or even romantic. There is a long cinematic history of similar movies. The brutal reform school lorded over by sadists genre of the British and Irish movies, such as "If" and "Borstal Boy," usually are from the point of view of the rebellious working class inmates, while the American version usually focuses on the inspirational teacher, not necessarily of the downtrodden unless race is also a factor, such as in "Dangerous Minds." There's "To Sir With Love" which brings in all these elements. And there have been several that use music as the key, from "Mr. Holland's Opus" to "School of Rock" and "Music of the Heart," some even based on true stories. The marginal originality here is that the focus is on a boys' chorus performing classical music, but I always find those angelic pre-puberty voices more creepily pure than appealing, as they are just so fleeting until their voices change. It is annoying how quickly the sympathetic chorus master molds the kids into perform-ability - there aren't even any rough rehearsals after the amusing scene where the kids reveal the little exposure they've had to any sort of songs. We're even robbed of the impact of the chorus on a key boy because the film is one long flashback. We only get a frisson of an implication of what else may have gone on in such schools as revealed in "Bad Education (La Mala educación)." This film is pretty to look at and listen to and saccharinely predictable.

Boys as a group are perhaps the least understood human beings among us. Les Choristes invites our understanding of their sensibility, sensitivity, and the ease with which they are treated badly -- in fact, have always been treated badly by institutions, educators and parents. The importance of fathers in their lives and their great need for a surrogate if the natural fathers are missing are beautifully explored in this film. The screenplay and its realization on screen are very effective in showing how the difficult combination of giving boys strong direction and tenderness and finding a way to their hearts can be accomplished. This film helps us understand how the same human creature can be hard and sullen one moment and sweetly spiritual the next, inaccessible one minute and needy the next. It is also an inspiring film for young men preparing to be teachers.

To the best of my knowledge Gerard Jugnot is completely unknown in England despite having acted in some 76 films, written 14 and directed 9. He was part of a group named Splendid who began in the cafe-theatres of Paris in the eighties and a fair percentage - Thierry Thermitte, Josiane Blasko are two names that will be familiar to both English and American audiences - have gone on to carve out successful movie and/or theater careers. Ironically, the second lead in The Choristes, Francois Berleand has appeared in several films that were seen outside France but the irony is that he could get a job tomorrow as a Richard Dreyfus look-alike and it was, of course, Dreyfus who starred in Mr.Holland's Opus, the film to which the Choristes is destined to be compared if not measured against. Currently this entry is making a lot of noise at the French Box Office and deservedly so if anybody asks you. Jugnot strikes just the right note (not really sorry about that) as the new teacher on the block in a school for hard cases but unlike Richard Dadier (or, Glenn Ford, whichever is the greater) his attempts to reach the kids via music is NOT abortive. For those who can't resist footnotes to other movies this one also has a touch of the Cinema Paradisos inasmuch as it begins with the death of a mentor and a now Internationally successful artist (for movie director read conductor) reminisces about his childhood and the influence upon it of said mentor. In a perfect world this movie WILL be shown in England and/or America and a great many more mavens will know what the cognoscenti have known for years, that Jugnot can make it even without the Paycock. 9/10

As a public school choir director I was thrilled to see a movie that celebrated the joy of singing. At the end of the semester I ran "The Chorus" for all of my students and the response was astounding. A French film with subtitles that kept the rehearsal room totally silent for two days of classes. Fantastic. I sincerely hope this fine film is given an honest opportunity to succeed in the U.S. We don't need a Disney remake in English with updated pop songs. This charming import is the real deal. As a teacher I always trust the sometimes brutal honesty that high school students express about films and music. My experience this semester has been that "The Chorus" is a winner. If you like this movie recommend it to others as it deserves to find its audience.