To Be and to Have ("Etre et Avoir").

2004, 104 minutes (DVD) New Yorker Films (www.newyorkerfilms.com; [e-mail]); 212-645-4600; 212-645-3030 (fax). In French, with English subtitles. Reviewed by Bruce Herzig, Assistant Editor, Childhood Education "You can base a film on small things," says documentary film director Nicolas Philibert in an interview that accompanies the DVD of "Etre et Avoir" ("To Be and To Have") and, indeed, this film's focus on schoolchildren learning penmanship or taking on the responsibility of feeding the classroom pets may seem narrow; at first glance. But Philibert, without being heavy-handed, illustrates how the minutiae of the everyday occurrences in a rural one-room schoolhouse reveal much larger lessons about how children are socialized, how children learn to co-exist with others, and what small miracles you can expect when a veteran teacher does his job quietly, firmly, and with utmost devotion and sensitivity.

"To Be and To Have," which won an award in 2003 from the National Society of Film Critics, is a charming documentary that follows the events of a school year in a single-class primary school, one of the last of its kind, in the Auverne, France, region. The children, whose ages range from 3 to 10, are taught by the infinitely patient Georges Lopez (his father emigrated from Spain). Much of the old ways prevail in this farming community; we see the children doing such chores as milking cows, mucking out barns, and driving tractors.

The idyllic rural setting of this small school will be unfamiliar in a number of ways to many viewers, especially to those American viewers who send their children to schools where recess and physical education classes have been cut, or where the anxiety over standardized testing, and frustration over the lack of time for learning for its own sake, loom everywhere. Viewers also may need to acclimate themselves to the film's leisurely pace. Philibert's camera lingers, often without any aural accompaniment, on such images as the pet tortoises inching across the empty classroom floor, or the children's mittens, soaked from an afternoon spent sledding, drying on the line.

We are privy to details from some of the children's lives away from school. The matter-of-fact, uncomplaining way the children complete their household chores hints at the responsibilities that await the older children in the class, who will be leaving this secure haven for a larger, impersonal middle school the next year. Philibert reminds us that childhood is filled with fears often forgotten by adults. We see Lopez comforting Olivier, whose father is ill from cancer, and asking gently probing questions of painfully shy and isolated Nathalie.

Young, impish Jo-Jo, with his theatrical stalling tactics, is the unofficial star of the film, while Lopez, who is set to retire after 35 years of teaching, is the quiet center of it all. He can appear to be stern; yet Lopez also happily joins in the messy process of demonstrating to the children how to crack eggs into a bowl and flip crepes. At another point in the film, Lopez tells Olivier and his classmate Julien (both completing their final year at the school) that they must stop fighting, if for no better reason than to set a good example for the younger children who share the same classroom. We learn that Lopez has wanted to be a teacher for all his life; indeed, he played at it as a child. Teaching, he tells the interviewer, takes a great amount of "time and personal involvement, and the children return it, over and over." The scene that takes place on the final day of the school year, with Lopez saying goodbye to the class, is all the more emotionally powerful for not being overdone.

Extensions: The added feature of a lengthy interview with the director of the film, Nicolas Philibert, provides a great deal of material on school life and his choice of this particular school and to the profession. A must-see for teachers on all levels. The film will generate a great deal of discussion, some positive and some negative, on the teaching practices observed.