(Die Kinder des Monsieur Mathieu [de])
France / Switzerland / Germany 2004
d: Christophe Barratier
Fox Pathé Europa (Region 0 fr)
sc: Christophe Barratier, Philippe Lopes-Curval (from the 1945 screenplay "La Cage aux rossingols" by Georges Chaperot, René Wheeler, Noël-Noël)
c: Jean-Jacques Bouhon, Dominique Gentil, Carlo Varini (Color, Super 35)
e: Yves Deschamps
pd: François Chauvaud
m: Bruno Coulais
p: Arthur Cohn (Vega Film / Banque Populaire Images 4 / CP Medien / Canal+ / Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC) / Dan Valley Film / France 2 Cinéma / Galatée Films / Novo Arturo Films / Pathé Renn Productions / Procirep)
w: Gérard Jugnot, François Berléand, Kad Merad, Jean-Paul Bonnaire, Marie Bunel, Jean-Baptiste Maunier, Maxence Perrin, Grégory Gatignol, Thomas Blumenthal, Cyril Bernicot
pr: 17 Mär 2004
aw: César Awards 2005 Meilleure musique; Meilleur son • European Film Awards 2004 Best Composer • Sant Jordi Awards 2005 Mejor Película Extranjera
rt: 92:34 (+4%PAL= 96) min
dvd-rl: 27 Okt 2004
ar: 2.35:1 (16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen)
sd: French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround • Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
st: French
supp: • Audio Commentary by Christophe Barratier
Cross-channel traffic in the boarding-school movie hit a peak with Lindsay Anderson’s crib from Vigo’s ‘Zéro de Conduite’ for the all-cylinders climax of ‘If…’ (with more than a semblance of Truffaut’s ‘The 400 Blows’ en route). Not quite returning the compliment, this French box-office smash takes its cookie-cutter inspiration from a different tradition – the motivational piety and porridge of ‘Goodbye, Mr Chips’ and its clan. Framed as a photo-album memory dusted off by a veteran conductor and his childhood pal, it recalls the post-war season at Fond de l’Étang (‘Rock Bottom’), a rural boardinghouse-cum-borstal, when the fusty shutters of the school’s authoritarian regime were eased open by an enlightened Samaritan pedagogue with hope for his charges’ hearts.
As embodied by the popular French actor Gérard Jugnot, Clément Mathieu is a decorous, self-minding fellow of musical bent, not instantly set for the unabashed hostility his students show him. Tousle-haired but troubled, this ragbag of lopsided ragamuffins is unwittingly awaiting an empathetic patron who believes in transformation through the conductor’s baton rather than the cane – although his ditzy fancy for one boy’s mother puts the dampeners on that rapprochement and stretches out the plot. Sincere in its sentimentality, it’s a cutely optimistic film that believes in the honeyed larynx as metaphor for the golden heart; the characterisation is contrived and the plotting broad and erratic, but at least the acting is more self-contained than the constantly swelling soundtrack.
— NB, Time Out Film Guide
