In Claude Berri's "The School Master", Coluche plays Gérard Barbier, a substitute teacher in a public school in some French little town whose name doesn't really matter. And it's not every day that a film's main character shares the same job than I and so maybe behind its façade of unpretentious little comedy, that film touched me a little more deeply than it was supposed to. I'm surprised how much I liked it given how remarkably unexecptional it is.
And I mean that as a compliment.
Coluche was a huge star in the late 70s but the 80s didn't start very well for him. His candidacy to the French election brought him a great deal of troubles (some still believe his death in 1986 wasn't accidental) and it did create much turbulences in his marital life, by the time the film was released, he had left his comic troop and divorced. And so maybe that role was a medicine he needed, a low-key comedy without much emphasis on his buffoonish manners, a film where he would act normally like a good guy willing to teach.
So much fuss could have been made out of the popular clown teaching a class and there's a fair amount of archetypes to justify the use of school as a comedic premise. At first it seems that the film is going to take that direction, it has its share of teacher's pets and bullies, an obnoxious brat you can't punish because his father is the mayor, you also get the depressed suicidal spinster ironically named Lajoie (Josiane Balasko) and the leftist unionized teacher (Jean Giraud) always at odds with the principal (Jacques Debary). Berri's writing has a way to make these people colorful but never caricatures.
And watching the film, I could measure the degree of decline of French comedy. The equivalent of a film like this would be "Profs" or "Ducobu", adaptations of comic books, which is exactly what French comedy has turned to: stock characters aiming to generate some laughs and crowd-pleasing diversity, the easy way. "School Master" doesn't care for that or cares just enough to make the inclusion of an African and an Arab kid something genuine, not designed to be politically correct. Things have changed on that level too.
"School Master" is different on another level: there's no particular narrative arc, everything goes fine for Barbier and situations unfold quietly without a particular call for tension-inducing situations. So many things could happen: an incident with a child, a romance, a hostage situation, fire, but Berri would have none of these. It's the kind of film where a teacher talks to kids about homosexuality and hormones and the Academy inspector doesn't even notice it and give sound advice to the newcomer.
One would then ask the purpose of a film without any particular stakes?
I guess having Coluche as a teacher was just a good idea. Simply said. It's such a simple idea that the film is driven by its own tenderness and respect toward school. You see Barbier as a man working in a clothes shop defending a child who stole boots and when he's fired he decides to start teaching. The first interview is still relevant today: he's told that he's joining the noblest government corporation but also the poorest and. In fact, I was surprised that even back then, teachers were complaining about the downfall of education, the so-called new techniques of child awakening etc. Quite an eye-opening experience.
But like a pupil spacing out in the class, Barbier hears these complaints without much listening, all he cares is just handling the course and if needed improvising a little, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I was wondering how much of the scenes were scripted but I think Coluche can't fake his emotions, let alone with kids. It's hard enough to get good acting from kids, inspire genuine reacting is the best option. Coluche is natural and feels natural. Two years later, he'd be even more natural in the masterpiece "So Long, Stooge" that will earn him the French Oscar.
I said 1981 was kind of a dark year for the actor and watching him during a promotional interview, he didn't seem to have recovered from it and I hope he could find some comfort making that film. "School Master" has a heart at the right place and doesn't try to preach something or revolutionize new techniques, some little parts didn't age very like a kid smoking or one sharing a bed with an adult although Barbier never comes across as the creepy type. He's got good will, he tries to please the principal, is loyal to his fiancée (Charlotte de Turkheim) and never tries to abuse from Lajoie's desperateness and give good advice to a girl whose parents are divorced. Maybe it was his own experience speaking?
I liked the film and I suspect I would have cherished its memory had I discovered it earlier. It's also a time capsule of the early 80s where schools didn't look from those I'd occupy by the end of the decade. There's also that catchy little song by Richard Gotainer 'Sampa" that has nothing to do with the theme but gives the perfect playful tone to the little film, the title song from Alain Souchon at the end credits works even better... in a sooting way.
What else to say, Barri who debuted with a childhood film named "The Old Man and the Child" seems to still have it. He can make comedy look as fluid and ordinary as reality and like for Michel Simon, he knew the asset was Coluche being himself. The minimalism paid off with 3 million viewers that year. Indeed, this is film that doesn't work despite its limitation but because of them.
