The title is misleading.
Sabri Lahlali (Roschdy Zem) is only the deputy principal of a neighborhood college.
He aspires to become a principal.
In the meantime, he is the right arm of Estelle (Yolande Moreau), a benevolent headteacher a few weeks from retirement.
The two share the same taste for literature.
Their references are not due to chance:
Le Sang noir
, by Louis Guilloux or
Martin Eden
by Jack London.
Two works that deal with transmission and class defector.
So many themes tackled with great finesse in this second feature film by Chad Chenouga, after
De tous mes forces
.
Roschdy Zem finds there one of his best roles, within a filmography however more and more enthralling.
He is formidable as an irreproachable deputy principal, huddled in his suit and tie and his rigid honesty, and, as the patent approaches, as a father worried about his son, a student in the same college and applying for a high school of excellence.
We will not say anything about the deviation committed by this man of principles and the spiral that this leads to.
Without weapons or violence,
The Principal
establishes a suspense worthy of the best thrillers.
And permanently escapes the moral lesson.
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