An Allegory of Passion, Compassion and Joy

Rating: 4/10 (29 July 2006)

Several people observed the plot to be simplistic, the characters to be mostly black-and-white stereotypes, consistency and credibility to be incomplete. Let's give an example: Even though passion and compassion are indeed key points of pedagogy, it is hardly credible that Mathieu might be so overwhelmingly successful while lying all the time. Even though he keeps lying just to protect the children, real children would continue lying at him as well.
If you judge the film as a psychological drama, you will indeed find fault. Except Pierre Morhange, hardly any one of the characters experiences any development, and even the change in Pierre's character is neither painted in any detail nor particularly convincing. A drama would require unity of its plot; yet, the film contains several plots only loosely tied to each other: the injury of the caretaker and its consequences, Mathieu's struggle against the director, Mathieu's efforts to help Pierre find himself. No, this is not great drama.
All the same, very many people were deeply moved by the film - how can that be? The film is allegorical, and allegory appeals directly to the heart. Mathieu represents Passion (incidentally, for music), Compassion and Tenderness (towards his boys). The effect of passion and compassion is Joy, represented by Pierre near the end of the film. The director represents the opposites: in place of Passion, Rage; in place of Compassion, Callousness; in place of Tenderness, Violence; the consequence is Torment, shown in Mondain. Pierre demonstrates that joy (shown when he first ventures to sing) leads back to passion (when he starts to strive for perfection) and ultimately to compassion (when he becomes thankful towards Mathieu). On the other hand, torment leads back to rage and violence (when Mondain physically attacks the director and sets fire to the school). And what does Pépinot represent? He doesn't have anything, he hardly knows anything, he does not do anything, but he is always waiting at the gate. That is Hope, and of course it is fulfilled in the end.
Allegory does not need development, it is static in essence. Allegory does not need logical consistency for its power, but it depends on simplicity and beauty - and of those two, lots may be found in the film.
It is not by coincidence that the whole film is placed in a universe by itself nearly disconnected from all the world we know - or the one our parents knew in 1949. This is indeed how allegory works best: any references to the complications of real life would just distract from the essence to be represented. Thus, for example, the boys sing classical music only - even though real boys of that age would have asked for contemporary music quite soon. Having seen this film, you would not guess that radio and television became mass media long before 1949.
Now you probably wonder why i rated the film so low - even though i recognize it as a touching work of art in the field of allegory. Well, allegory was well suited to the state of human mind of the Middle Ages, and its last height came about during the age of Romanticism. In our time, allegory is no more sufficient to describe social or even moral affairs.
Besides, the picture is not even flawless as an allegory. For example, i fail to understand why Pierre's mother is mentioned in the plot at all. She has no allegorical meaning, she pollutes the allegory by references to contemporary social reality (a single mother forced to work as a waitress), and - horrors in the context of allegory! - a story is told about her, a plain every-day love story. Perhaps the film-maker feared the general public would deem a film lacking any kind of romance just too boring.
Besides, the film sometimes slightly drifts away from allegory towards psychological drama (without convincing in that field, as stated above). The director, as the allegorical figure of Callousness, ought not to enjoy the construction of paper planes, in fact he ought not to enjoy anything; as the allegory of Order and Authority, he ought not to act spontaneously, in particular not to join the boys in the football area after being shot with the football. In reality, even the worst villain may suddenly show passion or joy - but not in allegory.