DOCUMENTARY.
A truly unique class
At 9:05 pm on France 4.
At your desks!
It is in the heart of the single class of a municipal school in the countryside that the film “Being and Having” plunges us.
But with such sensitivity that it led nearly 1.2 million spectators to revise their conjugations in cinemas when it was released in August 2002. Never before has a documentary known such popular success and received a such concert of praise, until winning the Louis-Delluc prize, rewarding the best French film of the year, a selection at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002 and the César du montage the following year.
What is so rare about it?
Its director, Nicolas Philibert, did not have the reputation of a Depardon to arouse such an effect of curiosity.
But his fierce desire to bring another perspective on our society made him find the rare pearl, in Saint-Etienne-sur-Usson, a village in Puy-de-Dôme.
Nicolas Philibert had already visited a hundred schools.
Each time, he explained, "something was wrong, like a teacher needing to be replaced, like premises too small to run without disturbing the class."
This time, barely entering Georges Lopez's class, he was won over.
By the personality of this teacher, "the one we would have liked to have had", wrote our newspaper at the time, with an authoritarian approach and in a fairly traditional style, but marked with great modesty and deeply attached to his job.
By the students too.
The reduced staff allowed everyone to be on screen and identified by the viewer.
Finally, the diversity of ages, from kindergarten to CM2, provided a special working climate.
It remained to restore the authenticity of this small community.
The director and his team did it brilliantly.
The only downside is the trial at the end of which the teacher, who claimed a share of the profits, was unsuccessful.
EDITOR'S RATING: 4/5
“To be and to have”
, French documentary film by Nicolas Philibert (2002).
(1h45).
THEATER.
The male at the Root
This “Mithridate” was staged by Éric Vigner in 2020 at the National Theater in Strasbourg.
/ The East India Company
At 8:50 pm on France 5.
Love stories end badly, in general, and with Mithridates, it is particularly true, old twilight king who killed several of these mistresses.
This time again ?
While he is given killed by the Romans, against whom he has resisted for decades, his two sons, Xipharès and Pharnace rush to Monime, his recluse bride, whom they both love.
In return, it is Xipharès that she secretly loves.
Finally alive, Mithridates returned perceives betrayals and dreams of his revenge.
Between dream and nightmare, the staging of Eric Vigner highlights the limpid and deep language of Racine.
We dive into it as in a fresh spring.
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With a feverish game, but calm and restrained, Stanislas Nordey, the father, Thomas Joly and Jules Sagot, the sons, struggle in angry contractions when Jutta Johanna Weiss expresses all the delicacy of Monime, proud and resolute.
EDITOR'S RATING: 4/5
“Mithridate”
, tragedy by Jean Racine, staged at the Théâtre national de Strasbourg by Eric Vigner (2020).
With Stanislas Nordey, Thomas Jolly, Julien Sagot, Jutta Johanna Weiss… (2h25).
DOCUMENTARY.
Resistance in the basement
At 9:10 p.m., on RMC Découverte.
They are legion, these little stories which make the great History.
This incredible documentary lifts the veil on the unrecognized combat of two Parisian doctors who resisted during the Second World War, under the occupation.
By chance, while they were interns at the Sainte-Anne psychiatric hospital, René Suttel and Jean Talairach discovered underground galleries dug over 770 hectares more than 20 m below the surface of the buildings.
While the Germans spotted, three years before the start of the conflict, secret tunnels that they would use in their strategic traffic plan, the occupiers luckily did not detect the sites detected by the valiant practitioners.
The latter, as real discreet heroes, succeed, using their only compass and counting their steps, to map with precision these passages of the 5th, 6th, 14th and 15th arrondissements, very useful to the French Interior Forces.
Amazing.
EDITOR'S RATING: 4.5 / 5
"The secret tunnels of the occupation"
, French documentary by Cyrille Daclinat.
(2020).
(52 minutes).
THRILLER.
Carnage at the Misses
At 1.35 p.m. on Canal +.
Invited by a friend to a beauty contest where drug traffickers unload and perpetrate carnage there, Gloria, a young American of Mexican origin, is kidnapped by the leader of this cartel, Lino.
The latter will force her to become a "mule" to pass drugs or weapons between the United States and Mexico, in exchange for the promise to help him find his friend, who disappeared after the massacre.
But the young woman, approached by a member of the American narcotics police, finds herself caught in a game of cat and mouse between traffickers and the police, which she will try to take advantage of, which will lead her to take big risks ...
American remake - much less successful - of a formidable Mexican film presented in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 2011, and which had then been a big critical success, “Miss Bala” nevertheless holds its breath thanks to its well-executed plot.
EDITOR'S RATING: 3/5
“Miss Bala”
, American thriller by Catherine Hardwicke (2019), with Gina Rodriguez, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Matt Lauria… (1h44).
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ENTERTAINMENT.
Post-war giants
“Maillan, Poiret, Serrault, funny forever” traces the journey of these laughing giants of post-war France.
/ Elephant Doc
At 9:05 pm on France 3.
They made post-war France screw up.
Until the 1990s, Jacqueline Maillan, Michel Serrault and Jean Poiret triumphed in cabarets, then in theaters and on the big screen.
They notably took part in the beginnings of the ORTF with “Au théâtre ce soir”.
We are delighted to see this trio again on stage in Georges Feydeau's "On purge bébé".
Or she, solo, in “Mad Amanda” and them in the unforgettable “Cage aux folles”.
Behind these three funny ones hide excellent actors, who inspired a whole generation, including Pierre Arditi, Pierre Palmade, Michèle Bernier or François Morel who intervene in this documentary in rerun.
EDITOR'S RATING: 4/5
“Maillan, Poiret, Serrault, funny forever”
, French documentary by Marie-Christine Gambart (2017).
(1h50).