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| Tookey's Review |
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| Pro Reviews |
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| Mixed Reviews |
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| Anti Reviews |
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| Cast |
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| Released: |
2002 |
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| Genre: |
FOREIGN
DOCUMENTARY
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| Origin: |
France |
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| Colour: |
C |
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| Length: |
0 |
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A sweet but powerful documentary by Nicholas Philibert about a French schoolteacher in a small, single-class, primary school in the Auvergne.
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Reviewed by Chris Tookey
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With few facilities but an abundance of determination, Georges Lopez (pictured right) comes across as a fine teacher and a wise man. It's a moving experience to see young minds expanding under his instruction.
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Is Georges too good to be true? Not really - there are many teachers like him, all over the world. We're just not used to seeing them, on any size of screen.
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Anyone interested in education will find this a joy, and it's uplifting to find at least one fly-on-the-wall camera crew that doesn't feel it essential to be snide and patronising.
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Far too many film-makers - and, indeed, people in my old stamping ground, TV, be they producers, directors, journalists or interviewers - suffer from a mixture of immaturity, metropolitan complacency and unwarranted intellectual arrogance.
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They should watch this film, strongly reminiscent of some great TV documentaries by John Pitman and members of the old Tonight team, and a throwback to the ancient but still honourable feature-documentary tradition of John Grierson. All modern film-makers could learn from its not-so-simple humanity, integrity and, above all, humility.
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