To Be and to Have (2003)

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The only thing to do is ask your local library to get this film for you, if you cannot find it elsewhere. Every child needs to have a teacher like M. Lopez. I will not tell you more, go get this film from somewhere!!! Soak in the joy!!

Wouldn't it be nice if instead of jamming the multiplexes to see mindless idiocy of most blockbuster movies, over-hyped reflections of our need to be constantly entertained, citizens could spend a few hours watching how children learn, getting to know what a quieter existence away from television might be like, getting a sense of community from a simple school room in France? Of course it would be nice if we all had free dental care, too, and a nutritious dinner fixed for us every night. But to the film: To Be and To Have is an amazing year's document inside a French classroom, where one patient teacher gives attention to the students who need it, teaches persistence and patience and co-operation, and does so without "no child left behind" gimmickry. He leaves no child behind, and if you take the time to immerse yourself in this slow, rewarding film, there are children you will meet and never forget. This film is quietly entertaining, highly educational, and reflects a kind of intelligent model for a civilized world.

"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 movie was a surprise find in the rarely used foreign film section of my usual DVD rental shop.The picture of innocence on the pupils face upon the DVD cover and the prospect of progressing my French vocab allured me to it.Since viewing it, really i should use the word; reliving,i have formed unexpected genial and sentimental memories of my own school days. This movie is essential viewing for any / all of us who have attended national or primary education. The realization that i alone could relate to each and every pupil, (and to the teacher), a similar person from my life and experience was overwhelming. i hold dear the joy of innocence and the reality of individuality portrayed in real life by all those who participated in this... exposition of the joy of obtaining and giving knowledge. the struggles were once my own, the humor warms me still, the knowledge is empirically embedded after the same such endeavor. i applaud this film and its' writer, director and producer. i know all its subject but by different names. i will re-watch it time and time again so that i may remain attached to the honesty of progress in life for us all via the altruism of dedicated teachers of knowledge and empathy.i hope my spelling errors do not influence your choice to experience this film.