Shanghai Daily news

In “Les Choristes,” renowned French actor Gerard Jugnot portrays the big-hearted music teacher, Clement Mathieu, who nurtures the kids’ talent and eventually wins their trust through music at a reform school.

Director Christophe Barratier

Fairytale-like and unabash edly melodious, "Les Choristes" treats local music lovers and cinephiles to two movies in one.
The French film was a surprise box office success in France earlier this year, grossing more than US$45 million in four months and outperforming an array of Hollywood blockbusters, including "Shrek 2" and "Troy."
As the opening film for the Year of France in China, "Les Choristes" looks like being a strong rival to the Chinese box-office champion, Zhang Yimou's "House of Flying Daggers," competing for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film next year. Miramax will release it in the United States next January.
The French film is a sentimental tale about the transforming powers of music on a group of troubled boys who have been sent to a harsh post-war reform school.
The year is 1948 and most of the pupils in the school are either orphans who have lost their families in World War II or pranksters whose parents have given up on them.
The rebellious youngsters endure a hard time under the thumb of headmaster Rachin (Francois Berleand), a sour-faced disciplinarian who banishes boys into solitary confinement as punishment.
Middle-aged, big-hearted music teacher Clement Mathieu (Gerard Jugnot) trips into this unhappy environment and quickly recognizes the boys' desperate need for real encouragement and respect. Discovering that several of them are gifted singers, Mathieu skirts around Rachin's policies and forms a choir.
He nurtures the kids' talent and eventually wins their trust through the music they create together. Remarkably, even the worst of the bullies turns out to be the choir's angel-voiced soloist.
The childhood of first-time director Christophe Barratier is everywhere in the movie.
"I lived without parents for five years because they were both busy actors," says Barratier during his visit to Shanghai last weekend. "At that time I met a teacher who found my musical talent and encouraged me to study music. The boy soloist is like me. The orphan who is always waiting for his father to pick him up every Saturday is also me. I often waited for my parents at school but they seldom appeared."
Barratier is a classically trained guitarist. He has worked with his uncle, indie producer and director Jacques Perrin, since 1991 and served as a producer of the feature-length documentaries "Microcosmos," "Himalaya"' and "Winged Migration." He directed the short film, "Les Tombales," in 2001 before making his feature debut as a director. Uncle Jacques is the producer and a supporting actor in "Les Choristes."
The film conquers audiences with its stirring and evocative score that perfectly complements the choral singing which resonates throughout the film.
"It is an innocent movie and I feel purified by the boys' singing," says Zhang Kun, a 27-year-old local film fan. "It's obviously a small-budget movie without plot surprises. Maybe it's even too nostalgic and old-fashioned, but it's a movie that can touch audiences with its music only."
Barratier is also proud of that. "Music is the best part of this film," says the director. "Seldom has there been a director like me who has had a professional musical education."
The performances of both the young and the adult actors are heartfelt and refreshing. Jugnot's natural acting seems not to be acting at all. He is, after all, also a director.
"Being a director is like being the chef in a restaurant while being an actor is like being one of the diners," says the comic star from the land of gourmets. He has performed in more than 70 films and most of his roles have been gentle, ordinary men.
"Probably it's due to my ordinary appearance, neither handsome nor tall," Jugnot chuckles. "But these ordinary men, like the music teacher, at least do extraordinary things. Perhaps it's the collision of the ordinary with the extraordinary. Every ordinary person has the potential to do something remarkable."
While the movie is now a success, it had to survive a difficult start.
"This is my first movie and because the subject matter was without a commercial element, it was hard to attract investment," says Barratier. "I hadn't anticipated the great box office. I only wanted to express the innermost emotions of my heart. I'm very introverted and sometimes pessimistic about life. I want to create a brighter mood through making movies. Thus my movie begins with a dark tone and gradually turns brighter and brighter."
"Film is always the reality that we wish to have," Jugnot says. "In France people cry and laugh when watching the film. Now, thousands of kilometers away in China it makes Chinese cry and laugh. It's amazing. We human beings have something in common."
Perhaps that's the simplest recipe for a hit movie - to drive an audience to tears of laughter.

"Les Choristes" is now being screened in French at two local cinemas.