SCHOOL OF BABEL (La Cour de Babel) B+
France (89 mi) 2014
d: Julie Bertucelli Official
website
A unique approach in exploring the diverse nature of the
global community is placing a film camera inside schools with newly arriving
students from all over the world. In
France these are known as “reception classes,” delving inside the La Grange-aux-Belles
secondary school in Paris, where the ages of the students are anywhere from 11
to 15, which includes 24 students with 24 different nationalities. Most are unable to speak French, so they need
intensified training with others in a similar situation, where the goal is to
be able to integrate these kids into the regular classrooms where they can
communicate with their fellow French students. While they begin with the simplest tasks, like
identifying themselves or saying hello in their native language, their teacher,
Brigitte Cervoni, slowly tries to engage them in French, very similar to
leading an ESL, or
English as a second language class here in America. Many kids have to overcome various levels of
shyness, cultural stigmas, preconceived notions, and often poor educational
skills, which might be the norm, but they all carry some degree of excess
baggage that is their own personal story.
In addition to the teacher, the filmmaker helps draw out several
introverted students whose stories are heartbreaking, often filled with abuse
within their own families, where some were denied access to any education for
several years, while others have been sent to aunts, uncles, or extended family
in France with near delusional hopes and expectations, as if this is their only
hope. Still, the mood of the classroom
is upbeat and positive, where everyone is urged to dream what kind of life
they’d like, and then attempt to make that happen. Initially we only see the kids in the
classroom, where some are more dominant verbally, while others are aloof and
sullen, where every single one of them has been picked on and humiliated by the
intolerant French students for their poor language skills. This commonality has a way of bringing these
kids together, as no one wants to live in shame. School gives kids a chance just to be kids,
but it also offers them educational opportunities they might not have
otherwise, where the goal is to educate each and every one of them, leaving no
child behind, where they at least have a fighting chance. It’s curious to learn where may of these kids
live, a dozen fitting into a one-room apartment under emergency circumstances,
where they continue to seek new living accommodations, but even if they
succeed, it means leaving the few friends they have in this classroom, the only
thing that represents stability in their fractured lives.
Parent-teacher conferences expand the universe for many of
the kids, as we’re able to see their living situations, where kids are expected
to succeed in school or be sent back home to their country where African girls
will be married off at 14 with or without their consent. In this way, education is a threat, learn or
else, as their young lives have no way to conceive the possible outcomes, where
it’s not exactly a motivating technique.
It may leave the kids feeling more helpless, as realistically no one is
on their side, where often they are literally dumped into these schools with
little or no parental supervision. Xin,
a Chinese girl, is urged to speak more, as she’s easily the shyest one in
class, but her mother works two jobs and is never at home when her daughter’s
there, so she’s raising herself all alone and literally has no one to talk to, where
her mother eloquently reveals “Not speak, all alone.” We learn later, almost by accident, that she
hasn’t seen her mother in ten years. Oksana
fled from the fighting in the Ukraine, but has hopes one day of returning as a
pop singer, breaking out into an a cappella song at one point, a rare moment of
beauty and artistry, where we see her later helping translate for other Eastern
European students. Miguel is a classical
cellist from Venezuela who practiced 9-hours a day for three months prior to an
audition into a French music conservatory, playing an atonal 20th century piece
in the classroom that couldn’t have felt more uplifting. Luca is from Northern Ireland, but has been
shunned by students wherever he’s gone due to signs of Asperger’s Syndrome,
where his mother tries to protect him by explaining his failings in math, but
you can see she’s only reinforcing failure in his mind. Mihajlo and his family are Jews that were
attacked by neo-Nazi groups in Serbia.
When asked if he might spend a little more time doing his homework, we
discover he’s been filling out all the copious paperwork for the entire family
in requesting asylum in France, while also providing all the interpreting
services for every family member, leaving him no available time. Ramatoulaye is the class diva from Mauritania,
regularly driven to tears when she discovers the difficulties others have had
to endure, but when asked, she can’t name a single student as a friend. We discover she lived with her father in
Senegal where she was kept out of school and beaten regularly, now living with
her mother who can’t read or write, but threatens to send her back to her
father if she doesn’t succeed. One can
sense the hostility seething under the surface with this young woman, who has
known nothing but mistreatment her entire life, finding it impossible to
believe there is any real hope.
The multicultural immersion is like a United Nations school
for refugees, yet it also recalls the provocative French teacher in Laurent
Cantet’s Palme d’Or winning film The
Class (Entre Les Murs) (2008), where the classroom discussions about race,
religion, nationality, and prejudice couldn’t have been more lively, where the
situations at home provided so little support due to the economic
circumstances, where these young kids are largely expected to raise themselves
on their own by the time they’re age 10, as the parents are forced to
work. It’s also reminiscent of Greek
filmmaker Lucia Rikaki’s Dreams
in Another Language (Oneira se alli glossa) (2010), featuring refugee
students at the Faneromeni school in Cyprus from 21 different nationalities in
primary and high school. The beauty of
these films is what these kids bring to the classroom, which is a fierce spirit
of hope as well as a deep, profound loss as the viewer begins to understand
what their shattered lives have been like, much of which is unimaginable to
Western families. The teachers in these
films are indefatigable, offering encouragement to each student, no matter the
errors or mistakes, trying to paint in their minds and imaginations the possibility
that they may meet a different future, where if they’re prepared for it, they
might have a different outcome than whatever it was that led them to these
classrooms, which is largely family abandonment. Each of these kids brings their own story and
their own personal insight, often becoming an ambassador for their reflective
cultures. When Maryam, a fierce defender
of Islam from Libya is pulled out of the school as they’ve located a larger home
in another town, the impact on the other students is literally heartbreaking,
as the solidarity among themselves is all they have to hold onto, and when one
link of the chain is lost, they feel suddenly more exposed and vulnerable. Filmed without narration or explanation, the
entire story evolves in the classroom, where the most unique features are the
emotional responses from the kids, who have a way of expressing the
universality of childhood, where it’s something that happens in every nation
around the world, irregardless of political events, where this film shows them
on the cusp of young adulthood, where they can be seen still clinging to the
innocence of their youth. Part of their
frustration is the inability to communicate in a foreign language, where they
are regularly teased and derided by other students for trying, yet their goal is
to be able to be in the same classroom with this bullying majority. That is the immigrant experience, poignantly
expressed by the heartfelt experiences shared by the kids in this film.
