A Week's Vacation

I am teacher. And I saw this film from the perspective of my professional status, admiring Nathalie Baye performance, inspired in nuance by nuance exploration of her character, by touching work of admirable Michel Galabru and the fair portrait of his character offered by Philip Noiret.

Al the aspects of contemporary educational system are present in this film and the portraits of love, friendship, relation with parents, olderniss and fatigue , doubts and attitudes of students are presented in admirable - precise manner.

A film about options and answers to them.

And , sure, the splendid mark of great Bertand tavernier.

The French film Une semaine de vacances (1980) was shown in the U. S. with the title A Week's Vacation. It was co-written and directed by Bernard Tavernier.

The movie stars Nathalie Baye as Laurence, a high school teacher in Lyon. She's a good teacher, but she isn't happy at school. She's not happy about her boy friend. In fact, she's not happy about much in her life, although people think she should be happy.

My problem with the movie is that it's hard to like the protagonist. People ask her if she's going to keep teaching. People ask her what she would do if she stopped teaching. People ask her if she will marry her boy friend. People ask her if she wants to have children. Her answer to each of these questions is, "I don't know."

Bernard Tavernier was a great director. Nathalie Baye is a great actor. It's no surprise that the direction and acting were fine. However, I didn't appreciate the plot or identify with the protagonist.

Bernard Tavernier died on March 25th, 2021, just a few days before I wrote this review. He directed many great films, which I recommend. However, I consider this one of his lesser films.

I think that this movie is worth watching, but it's not a must-see. It has a weak IMDb rating of 6.7. I agreed, and rated it 7.

Although my memory is somewhat hazy (I saw this movie 17 years ago.), the concept of being stuck in a rut caught my attention. When the heroine takes her vacation, it is not just from work but from her personal life as well. I remember thinking about how her self-assessment would not have been as effective had she maintained her personal contacts during that time.

"Une Semaine De Vacances" (1980) is not a film for every taste or mood. Do not expect a strong narrative - in fact, there is not the tiniest shred of plot during its 100 minutes. The celebrated writer-director Bertrand Tavernier is not a notable visual stylist, either. What he is, though, is a poet of the everyday, the banal. It's a small, quiet, subtly melancholic film about depression. Not an official follow-up to Tavernier's own "L'Horloger de Saint-Paul" (1974), though it does briefly catch-up with Philippe Noiret as the same character from that film, and it is also - refreshingly - set in Lyon. Nathalie Baye is one of the most talented French actresses of her generation and, despite what her character says at one point, very pretty, too: her smile lights up the whole screen. There are a couple of terrific songs, too. **1/2 out of 4.

Laurence (Nathalie Baye), thirty one years old, is a high school French teacher in Lyon. She has a good relation with her students, genuinely cares for them and they appreciate her efforts. She is reasonably attractive, charismatic and socially adept with neighbors and colleagues (one of them, a woman endowed with a oversized sense of humor is her best friend). She gets along well with her parents, which are aging in apparent harmony in a small village nearby and even with her ne'er-do-well brother Jacques. Her boyfriend Pierre is at times overbearing and unsubtle, but sincerely loves her and dreams of having a child with her. At times, he seems to know her better than she herself does. Her friend urges her to formalize her relationship with Pierre and start a family before her biological clock winds down.

All of this changes one morning, when Laurence has a near panic attack, is unable to face her class and misses school. She is given a week's vacation to sort out her (unexplained) problems. She reexamines her life in a new and rather negative light; in spite of her efforts her student's writing is full of cliches and platitudes, a neighbor responds improperly to her kindness and she tries clumsily to find a pretext to break up with Pierre. At this point, order and purpose disappear and we are faced with the chaos of real life; motivations are unclear or missing, actions have unexpected reactions and plans seem not to work any longer. Whether Laurence will strike a new path or go back to her previous life after the week's vacation is left open.

The movie rests squarely on Baye's shoulders; she is in almost every scene. She does an excellent job. The other actors are at the same level, among them Tavernier regular Philippe Noiret in a short role. The script is spare and (as the movie requires) does not attempt to weave a conventional plot. A successful movie.