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Movies & TV News & Features

Kid-unfriendly

Rating: NN


ETRE ET AVOIR (Nicolas Philibert, 2002)

Rating: NN

This Doc Soup entry documents daily life in a tiny village school in France’s swooningly picturesque Auvergne region. If you like rustic cows, snow softly falling on evergreens and adorable tots lisping in French, you’ll love this. But if you’re looking for smart, critical, Frederick Wiseman-style documentaries about institutions, you’d better stay away. Everyone in this film seems excruciatingly aware of the camera, and there are a couple of disturbing moments when the director and the school’s often insensitive, authoritarian teacher seem to be colluding to make the more vulnerable children cry onscreen just to up the film’s emotional ante. Pretty and charming, but not necessarily nice. (Bloor, January 15)

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