BY KIM LINEKIN

When the documentary Etre et avoir (To Be and To Have) premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, it seemed too small and precious to ever get a theatrical release. The documentary follows half a year in the life of a schoolhouse in rural France, where a patient teacher in his fifties presides over a small group of kids aged four to 11.
While watching kids do their homework is something adults generally pay others to do so that they can go to the movies, in Etre et avoir, it's revealed as fascinating entertainment in itself. The film invites the audience into the learning process, to re-experience what it's like to trace letters for the first time, put feelings into words, realize you can keep counting forever. The tiny frustrations and triumphs these children experience are more affecting than most life-or-death battles between adults.
The director, Nicolas Philibert, also a patient man in his fifties, spent five months researching more than 300 schools and visiting about 100 before finding the one he wanted to feature. Reached by phone and email at his home in France last week, Philibert explains the criteria he used.

"I wanted the film to be set in an agricultural region with a tough climate and harsh winters," he says. (The school scenes are interspersed with shots of the surrounding landscape showing the passing seasons). "I wanted a school with a limited number of pupils so that each child would be easily identifiable and become a character in the film. I also wanted the fullest age range possible -- from kindergarten to the final year of primary school -- to show the atmosphere and charm of these small, eclectic communities and the very specific work required from the teachers. Finally, I wanted at least one child in the process of learning to read."

He found all this and more in the schoolhouse run by Georges Lopez, whom Philibert describes as "a modest man beneath his slightly authoritarian air." Lopez was recommended to Philibert by the local education inspector.
"When I met him, he was initially surprised that someone would want to make a feature film on such an unspectacular subject," Philibert says. "I talked to him about my approach, pointing out that it was not founded on a nostalgic view but on the desire to follow the work of the pupils as closely as possible. I was convinced that filming a child struggling with subtraction could become a real epic."

Shooting took place between December, 2000 and June, 2001, during which time Philibert accumulated almost 60 hours of rushes. He and his crew of three crouched in the corners of the schoolhouse and tried, as much as possible, to stay out of everyone's way. "On the first day, we took time to explain how we were going to work, what all our equipment was for. Each of the children had a look through the camera, played with the zoom, tried on the headphones. Then they got back to work and so did we. After three days, we were almost a part of the classroom."

Philibert calls his hands-off approach one of "benevolent neutrality" rather than strict documentary objectivity. He had to resist the temptation to help the kids when they asked or to laugh at their clowning around, but beyond that he allowed certain latitudes. He didn't mind if they looked straight into the camera, for example, and he never filmed them without their knowledge ("my camera is not a surveillance camera," he protests). The respectful relationship he developed with the children mirrors the one Mr. Lopez cultivates with his students. "Very quickly, [the children] understood that we were not there to judge them, nor to film them at all costs," says Philibert. "If one of them felt disturbed by our presence, we didn't film it."
As a result, everyone involved in the film is proud of its success in Europe, where it was recently named Best Documentary at the European Film Awards. "The children, their parents and the teacher were very touched by the film, even if some scenes show children in touchy situations," Philibert says.

He likens Etre et avoir to a fairy tale, in that it follows a group of characters "along the rocky path of learning to read, write, count and, in the end, grow up." While some of the characters are undeniably cute, Philibert argues that the film itself isn't. "Personally, I see a certain gravity and even a certain violence, even if this remains contained." (www.eye.net)

From Village Voice - Michael Atkinson

Philibert's movie-which has drawn doc-record crowds in France-never pretends the camera is invisible, but the same questions arise, somewhat hesitantly: How humane and generous is Lopez when the crew isn't shooting? How sweet are the pupils? But doubts fade with time spent in the children's presence-the magical dynamic we witness, of recitations and math problems and disciplinary chats and vocabulary drills, all of it performed with exacting sympathy and focus, is genuine to the touch.

Derived from a conjugation lesson, Philibert's title* is simple enough to cause spillways of interpretation, a reflex the film itself invites. Full of observed life, the movie is also a bit of a vacuum, and once we register our admiration for Lopez, we can hardly help contemplating the cold equations of the students' futures, their uneducated families, and the rapturously desolate farmland around them. When Lopez delicately announces his retirement, it's accepted in class with equanimity-only we are aware of the potential for darker days ahead.

* (You remember from your French lessons that verbs have to be conjugated with either être or avoir to form the perfect/passé composé? French kids have to learn this too!)

From POINT DE VUE by Pascal Thomas

Eduquer est le mot latin qui signifie dégager, faire éclore les facultés naturelles qui sommeillent en chaque individu...Etre cet instituteur debout, celui qui apprend à ces petits- qui ont pris la rude résolution de devenir des hommes, ou être un cinéaste dont l'exigence est de montrer la richesse d'un monde qu'on ne sait plus voir, participe de la même certitude d'accomplir un devoir élevé. Au fond de l'obscure âme enfantine qui ressemble tant à celle du spectateur gît un désir primordial d'apprendre qui est une des formes de l'émerveillement : la scène de l'exercice de calcul en famille est de ce point de vue la métaphore exemplaire de l'étonnement auquel peuvent conduire les mouvements mystérieux et incontrôlables des chiffres. Le maître d'école a la tâche de libérer ces tendances prisonnières. Il a la responsabilité de nous rappeler le seul sens de l'éducation : être sûr que quelque chose est vrai pour oser le dire à un enfant. A un âge où le monde semble aussi neuf qu'on l'est soi-même, l'enfant a besoin de savoir s'il est responsable ou irresponsable, moral ou immoral, perfectible ou imperfectible, non pour comprendre mais pour se comprendre lui-même.

C'est de cette responsabilité que Nicolas Philibert a fait le sujet d' " Etre et avoir " . Cette responsabilité qui est le sujet premier, la vocation première par lesquels ces hommes debout, enseignants ou cinéastes, attachés à notre tradition humaine, nous font toucher à l'universel, nous disent tout de la vie et de la grandeur des hommes.

From Objectifs Cinéma:

Il existe encore, un peu partout en France, des écoles à "classe unique", qui regroupent, autour du même maître ou d'une institutrice tous les enfants d'un même village, de la maternelle au CM2. Entre repli sur soi et ouverture au monde, ces petites troupes hétéroclites partagent la vie de tous les jours, pour le meilleur et pour le pire. C'est dans l'une d'elles, quelque part au cœur de l'Auvergne, que s'est tourné ce film.

Etre et avoir est un documentaire. C'est un beau, simple et vigoureux documentaire qui suit l'année scolaire dans une classe unique d'Auvergne. Où des écoliers s'efforcent de répondre à l'austère dévouement de leur maître. Le récit procède par étapes, par dévoilements, épousant la sérénité troublée de la nature, dont les paysages ponctuent le montage comme une page que l'on tourne, sur laquelle on souhaiterait s'arrêter. On pense à Lars Von Trier qui dans Breaking the waves entrecoupait ses cadres déchiquetés, son récit insoutenable et poignant, de tableaux sereins aux couleurs sucrées. Le contraste jouerait également dans Etre et avoir, entre la nature, ses apparats saisonniers, suspendue par la contemplation de l'auteur, et le récit serré, exigeant, parfois éprouvant. Il y a surtout, outre le plaisir de filmer, la volonté de donner à voir ce qui entoure cette école. La nature telle qu'elle est. Une classe telle qu'elle vit. Le temps passe, les saisons tournent, l'année avance. Le collège pour les uns, la retraite pour le maître. Il y a une véritable empathie chez Philibert, sans amertume ni fantasme : l'enfance n'est pas seulement éclats de rires et vertes prairies, (même en Auvergne…), mais aussi calculs assommants, compas réfractaires, coloriages soporifiques que l'on voudrait abandonner. La curiosité parfois, l'ennui et la violence également. Philibert prend l'enfance au sérieux... On pourra lui reprocher ses enfants, trop enjôleurs, trop mignons. Son maître d'école, que certains jugeront trop dévoué, trop attentif, trop obstiné pour être vrai. On pourra reprocher à Philibert d'aimer ce qu'il filme, de faire part, à sa façon, de son plaisir. On pourra aussi soutenir l'inverse, trouver qu'il ne montre, ne dit pas assez. On pourra surtout reconnaître que pour nous émouvoir, Philibert est parti de routes venteuses, d'étables, de crayons, de visages, de bâillements et de troupeaux, laissant le réel respirer et livrer son souffle. Reconnaître que l'enchantement s'est patiemment institué. Que Philibert a su allier pudeur et plaisir, ce qui est rare. Donc précieux.

Some of the awards won by Être et avoir

European Film Awards 2002: Won Best Documentary Award
French Syndicate of Cinema Critics 2003: Won Critics Award: Best Film
USA National Society of Film Critics Awards, 2004: Won Best Documentary
Valladolid International Film Festival 2002: Won Best Documentary
BAFTA Awards 2004: Nom. Best Film not in the English Language