"Être et avoir" documents a year at a small school consisting only of a single, mixed-age class in one of the most rural parts of the Auvergne region in France. Much can be said about Georges Lopez, who is the perfect teacher; firm but fair; reserved yet never impersonal; an overall dedicated and stimulating figure. What is also wonderful, however, is that the film paints such a sensitive, lovely picture of life in rural France - very rural France, for that matter. Complimenting the footage of the school master and his pupils are poetic scenes of the surrounding Auvergne countryside and of the home lives of the school's pupils. These scenes not only show the bucolic lifestyle that has somehow managed to survive for centuries largely unchanged, but also of the impact of this way of life upon an education system prescribed by city-folk. The film is slow-paced but never boring; it suits the quiet nature of the environment being captured. In short, "Être et avoir" is a glorious, inspiring gem.

This film manages to pull off an unusual double: it is both boring and hellish. It is very slow, and very little happens, and most that does happen happens several times. It is about dull people in a dull world, doing nothing of merit or novelty.So much for the boring aspect of it, now on to the hellish:- The job of a psychotherapist is to convince people that they need his help in the first place, and then to convince them if they come to him that they are being helped by him, even if he is (as statistics consistently reveal) not helping at all. Similarly, the job of the teacher in this documentary is to convince the viewer that he is a nice, patient, caring man. This way, he gets to come across well, and the film-makers have a hero.The teacher we see in this film and the film-makers behind the camera are presumably sadistic uncaring bastards. Several times in this film we see a scene in which the teacher has isolated one pupil from the rest, and sets him up in front of the unforgiving and ever-judging camera, and slowly pushes him and pushes him until eventually he cracks and bursts into tears. For those who enjoy child psychological torture porn, this is a feast. For others, imbued with some modicum of empathy and perception, this is hellish. I wanted step into the picture and rescue those poor children from his vile clutches. All the time, he is selling himself to the viewer and the child as kind and gentle, and all the time he is anything but. The film makers do not intervene. Instead, the camera is rock steady on its tripod, out-staring the children, and intimidating them. All the director has to do is wait, and he will get his golden moment of child tears.The children in this film are not bright, or at least, not the ones the editor has chosen to show us. Again, several times we see a child picked on and humiliated for the camera. One child counts to six, and then fails to say the next number, and the teacher asks him what they have been working on all morning. The boy is told the answer a few times, but still cannot repeat it. I think if I were four years old and had a film crew, a teacher, and the rest of my class all looking at me like that, I might too be intimidated into silence. At another point, a boy is pushed over and bursts into tears. He is four. When the film came out he would have been about five, when the DVD came out he would have been about six. He was sentenced to a childhood of being the one who was pushed over and burst into tears. A newspaper report says that since the film came out, nine of the eleven children featured have sued the film makers for compensation for trauma.There is another scene in which one boy is at home trying to do his maths homework and is having trouble. More and more members of his family step in to try to help, and the way the scene is cut strongly suggests that none of them can solve the one problem that the little boy has been set. I strongly suspect that the editor has made them look dimmer than they really were. We urban film-going intellectuals are treated to an opportunity to laugh at the stupid rustics. Okay, the boy is bit dim, and his family is a bit dim - I get it - but there is no need to rub anyone's face in it.The teacher is forever fishing for compliments, both from the pupils and the viewers. To watch this smug man go utterly unchallenged was near unbearable. No one questions his methods or his authority. The parents all seem to defer to him, and to the children he is all-knowing. The school actually has two teachers, but the second one is almost entirely ignored. We are invited to feel sorry that the man is retiring. I am disappointed that he wasn't sacked thirty years ago. That he has no children of his own and is apparently single is not investigated. There may be very good or very bad reasons for this.I say that the people who write in other reviews that the perpetually black-clad teacher is saintly, the school idyllic, and the film charming, have been successfully conned. That was clearly the intent of the film makers, and that they have succeeded with so many people is praise-worthy in terms of film-making technique, but utterly condemning in terms of morality.If you hated school, as very many (most, I suspect) people did, then this film is a disturbing reminder of the sheer hellishness of it all. It is reasonable to suspect that the people who chose to see a film about school days are a sample biased towards those who liked school and were blind to its dark side.I can recall one shot that I enjoyed: a small boy, looking quite content and able, driving a massive tractor on his family's farm.

But I expect we won't see part two - because of the quiet discontent that spiraled out of control once the movie hit box office paradise. The producers evidently turned capitalistic in their approach and by calling this movie a "documentary" where given the license to keep over one million euros while the actual star "Mr. Georges Lopez" makes nothing. He sued after the movie made it to the top of the charts - but the French Government failed to give him his due reward. Shame on them! I agree with Mr. Lopez, and the families of the children who are suing for a piece of the profit. Where else on earth could this money be more well spent? But to conclude, Mr. Lopez, you may not receive materially thanks for your life work as a teacher, but you surely receive the thanks of all residents of this world for your gentle, loving and intellectual approach to enriching the lives of the children of rural France. Cudos Mr. Lopez. You are a hero in the truest sense of the word. And one other thing I'd like you to know...there could not be a more beautiful place on earth then where your one room school house was located - I envy you your job and your location...a life well led is almost impossible in a global capitalistic economy like the one we are all confined to live in. One last thing....write a book if you'd like to make some money. Since I'm sure that Part II won't be coming out in the film office, I'd be just as happy to read about it. Then come and live out your final days here in the U.S.. You would certainly receive better legal treatment here then in France!

Yes, it's in French. Yes, the title is "enigmatic." And, yes, you will have to read subtitles if you're French-challenged. But this film will show you what "to educate" means (from the Latin educo -- to draw forth, i.e., to lead out of). The teacher in this rural French one-room school has a dozen or more students from ages 5 to 11, and to all (pupils and parents) his demeanor is one of "how can we find common ground", "how can we live together harmoniously" and "how can we foster development?" This is a great movie, a marvelous documentary filled with private moments and a way of life that is hidden demurely away, even from the French. There are touching moments where students must face difficult life problems and somehow in French seems to be the most lovingly gentle way to approach them; we almost feel like a voyeur in these scenes (thank you, France, for that word). If you are at all moved by the process of childhood development, of what it means to be a source of truth in people's lives, and what is it a teacher really can do, then watch this film (maybe several times). If you're tired of movies with intricate plots, sirens and helicopters, this is the film for you!