Vocal Motion
Singing soothes savage boys in charming French fable "Les Choristes"

This year's official foreign language Oscar nominee from France was this tender-hearted fable from Christophe Barratier, Les Choristes (The Chorus). For some of us the more obvious choice would have been Jean-Pierre Jeunet's masterful A Very Long Engagement, but that film was disqualified by the French selection committee for its large proportion of American financing. The good news is while Barratier's film may not be as sweepingly complex as Jeunet's, Les Choristes is a charmer on its own terms, an evocative tale of corruption, redemption, and the transformative power of music in a French boys' boarding school in the years after World War II.

In 1949, France is still trying to pull itself together after the deprivations of war. In a sluggish economy, humble, middle-aged Clement Mathieu (the wonderful Gerard Jugnot), a failed composer and musician, takes a job as "supervisor" (sort of an on-site den father) and part-time teacher at a reform school for "delinquent" boys called Fond De L'Etang, a crumbling stone fortress out in the middle of nowhere. Some of the boys are shut up there because their parents can't take care of them, or find them iconvenient. Some of their parents are never coming back. The place is run by sleek, tyrannical headmaster Rachin (Francois Berléand), whose motto is "Action—reaction!" Meaning, every time anybody misbehaves, everybody pays. Caning and lengthy sessions of prison-like solitary confinement are among his favorite disciplinary methods. (Think of the odious Wackford Squeers school in Nicholas Nickleby.)

Disturbed by Rachin's draconian methods, Mathieu attempts to find a way to reach out to the surly, riotous kids. Sleeping in a tiny room in their dormitory, he overhears them singing dirty songs one night. Instead of punishing them, he asks each boy to sing for him, and organizes them into a chorus. (The one boy with an irredeemable tin ear is given the job of music stand, holding conductor Mathieu's music.) The boys go along with it as a lark, but the chorus comes into its own when Mathieu discovers that one of the most incorrigible boys, Morhange (Jean-Baptiste Maunier), has the purest soprano voice. The troubled son of an unwed single mom (Marie Bunel) who can't afford to keep him at home on her waitress salary, Morhange is Mathieu's biggest challenge.

The other is Rachin, who is ready enough to claim credit for the school chorus, but who privately believes Mathieu is coddling the boys and threatens to shut down the chorus at every turn. As time passes the boys are delighted to find something they can be taught to do well, and for which they are praised. But the greatest beneficiary is Mathieu himself, whose own neglected dreams are rejuvenated as he composes ever more heavenly music for his eager new charges to sing.

13-year-old Maunier, who looks like a Frankish cousin to the acting Culkin brothers, makes a spectacular screen debut as Morhange. He's not given much acting to do in the part but glower and look sullen, but the classically-trained Maunier does his own singing in the film, which has made him an overnight teen idol in France. A former musician himself; filmmaker Barratier wrote all the lyrics and co-wrote the music for the film's orignal songs (the most haunting of which was also nominated for an Oscar). Maxence Perrin is also memorable as Pepino, the smallest, most wistful orphan at the school. In real life, little Perrin is the son of fabled French star Jacques Perrin, who appears in this film's bracketing story as a distinguished concert conductor looking backward to his time at the school.

Barratier's film was inspired by a little-known 1945 French film called The Cage of Nightingales. Indeed, Barratier doesn't say much that hasn't already been said in other inspirational mentor/teacher stories from Goodbye Mr. Chips to Dead Poets Society. (There's even a nod to Cinema Paradiso in which Perrin also played an adult looking backward to his youth.) But Barratier puts it all together with a great deal of heart, dry humor, and the soul of the musician he is, returning joyously to the avocation he loves.

LES CHORISTES (THE CHORUS) With Gerard Jugnot and Jean-Baptiste Maunier. Written by Christophe Barratier and Philippe Lopes Curval. Directed by Christophe Barratier. A Miramax release. (PG-13) 96 minutes. In French with English subtitles. (***)
Review published in Good Times, March 10, 2005