Monsieur Lazhar

Immigrating. Searching for work. Adapting to the dynamics of your new surroundings. Quietly suffering from the trauma of your previous ones.

Philippe Falardeau's Monsieur Lazhar follows the activities of Bachir Lazhar (Mohamed Fellag) as he seeks refugee status in Montréal and finds a job teaching in an inner-city elementary school. Matters are complicated by the fact that he replaces a respected facilitator of learning who recently committed suicide in the classroom. His students are confused and shocked.

His antiquated teaching style doesn't placate things.

But his strict yet forgiving direct approach has its merits as he attempts to bring his students's pain out into the open. Simultaneously creating a cathartic outlet and an administrative backlash, he boldly proceeds while negotiating the consequences.

With neither teaching degree nor classroom experience.

His traditional signs and points of reference have been displaced, transformed and differentiated, yet his wit remains intact, enabling him to manufacture structured cultural resources through the process of active creativity.

Which facilitate his socio-economic recovery.

Flexibly managing the viewpoints of the other while adopting components of their constructive criticisms to his professional and social practices leads to his modest integration.

Synthesizing divergent contents with similar forms systematically acculturates his multifaceted tenacity.

Because he gives a shit.