When Les choristes (known in English under the title The Choir) begins, an elderly Pierre Moranghe (played by Jacques Perrin) greets his onetime classmate Pépinot (played by Maxence Perrin), who has a notebook in his hand; the year is 1999. The notebook consists of a journal kept by their former teacher, Clémont Mathieu (played by Gérard Jugnot). During much of the rest of the film, directed by Christophe Barratier, the words in Mathieu's notebook serve as voiceover texts for a touching story that begins in 1949, when he enters the grounds of Fond de l'Etang (loosely translated as Bottom of the Barrel), a boarding school for sixty or so young misfits, many of whom are war orphans, ranging in age from about nine to seventeen. Monsieur Rachin (played by François Berléand), the school principal, is a stern disciplinarian who believes that student conduct must be punished on the basis of the principle "action-reaction." Mathieu is replacing a teacher who says that he is leaving because of a knife wound, which required several stitches, that was inflicted on him by a student. Mathieu's job is to teach a course in the afternoon while serving as dorm supervisor at night. While being initially escorted by the principal into the school, Mathieu observes as the school handyman Maxence (played by Jean-Paul Bonnaire) suffers an eye injury because the entry to his office is boobytrapped. Immediately summoning students for an assembly in the courtyard, Rachin demands to know who is responsible; when no one comes forward, he asks Mathieu to pick a student at random from the rollbook to be punished. Mathieu, in short, quickly learns that Rachin is more interested in discipline than in justice and evidently surmises that endemic student misconduct at the school has been a reaction to Rachin's crude actions. Mathieu tries a more compassionate approach. For example, upon entering the classroom for the first time, students grab his briefcase and throw it back and forth, but when Rachin suddenly enters and observes unruly students, Mathieu claims that there is no mischief. When Mathieu learns who boobytrapped Maxence's door, he quietly assigns that student the task of caring for Maxence in the infirmary but does not inform the principal of his clever way to have the student learn his lesson through a compassionate act. One night, Mathieu hears students in the dorm singing a tune making fun of him. Rather than taking offense, Mathieu compliments the effort to provide music. As a composer of songs that have never before performed, he then decides to train a choir in the classroom. Soon, the choir's music is so harmonious that even the principal seems pleased that discipline problems have decreased, though Rachin admits only that there is a coincidence rather than cause and effect until one of the school's benefactors, a countess (played by Carole Weiss), learns of the choir, attends a command performance, and accepts Rachin's word that the choir was his own idea. One of the more troublesome students, Pierre Moranghe (played by Jean-Baptiste Maunier), has a remarkable voice, so in time Mathieu informs his mother Violette (played by Marie Bunel) about his talent, encourages her to take him from Fond de l'Etang so that he can enroll in a music school at Lyon on scholarship. One day, funds are missing from the principal's office. The most troublesome student, Mondain (played by Grégory Gotignol), is wrongly blamed without evidence in a manner reminiscent of the French condemnation of Alfred Dreyfus a century earlier and then is escorted away by police. When Mondain returns to the school, the principal slaps him for thirty minutes, attempting to find the location of the money. After Mondain lunges for the principal, other teachers intervene, and he is again hauled away by the police. When Mondain later returns, he starts a fire that guts the school. The principal blames Mathieu and Maxence, who were on an unauthorized excursion with the students rather than guarding the school, and he fires Mathieu, whereupon the journal of his experience at the school ends. However, there is a very touching surprise ending as well as an epilog with the same two classmates. The melodious chorus of Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc intoxicatingly sings as credits roll. In directing a retake of the 1945 film La cage aux rossignols (The Cage of Nightingales), Barratier is also the composer of some of the songs in the film. Gratuitously, there is a gay theme. Mondain, who has sexually omniscient eyes, at one point offers to "protect" angel-faced Moranghe, a practice that he doubtless learned while in prison. Moranghe in turn tries to fight back but is evidently overpowered under the sheets in the dorm. Presumably, more rapes occurred, so that incident serves merely as a hint. MH
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