Desire Avenue

I don't own many French films on dvd but I'm glad I own this one.

Etre et Avoir is a documentary film which chronicles the day to day ahppenings in a single classroom school in a small rural village. The dozen kids,aged 4 to 10, are taught by a single teacher, as the film traces their development from winter to summer.
From the blurb on the back of the dvd....' A master of quiet authority, he patiently navigates the children towards adolescence, cooling down their arguments and listening to their problems with extraordinary dedication.'

At 100 minutes in length and very slow moving in pace its obviously not a film for everyones taste but I thought the overall film was quite captivating in its own quiet way.

Very good documentary !

Where did you find this, Rob? Sounds like it might be my kind of thing.

On the subject of French documentaries, Alex I wonder if you know the name of one I stumbled into on telly here a while back, it was about a French police investigation into a serial killer? The guy had an amazing photographic memory for the locations where he'd killed his victims. It was fascinating, I'd love to see it again but I have no idea what it was called.

blue wrote:Where did you find this, Rob? Sounds like it might be my kind of thing.

I actually found it in my local Oxfam shop. I don't usually like leaving any charity shop without buying something so looking through their secondhand dvd rack I spotted this dvd for £2.99 and I just thought it looked.......'different'.

Its on the Tartan Video label (2003) PAL TVD 3450

I should mention of course that it is in French with English subtitles.

It also won the following awards:

Best Documentary, European Film Awards, 2002
Best Film, French Cinema Critics Awards, 2003
Best Film, Prix Louis Delluc, 2002
Best Editing, Cesar Awards, 2003

and the following mags gave it a 'four star' review:
Radio Times
Empire
Uncut
Total Film
Big Issue

whilst Attitude awarded it five stars.

One think i'll say though,I don't think the school mini-bus driver would be allowed in this country to drive at that speed on snowy narrow country lanes.

I remember reading about it and thinking 'must see' but still haven't.
Nice title.

To Be and to Have

Btw...its got a 7.8 rating on IMDB.