Les Choristes (The Chorus)

Les Choristes (The Chorus), a moving and heartfelt French drama film about a correctional school for boys set in post war France directed by Christophe Barratier in 2004. The film is an adaptation of the 1945 film La Cage aux Rossignols (A Cage of Nightingales).

The story begins with a wildly successful orchestra conductor Pierre Morhange (Jacques Perrin) returns home for his mother's funeral. Soon, an old friend called Pépinot (Didier Flamand) arrives at his door with a diary. It is the diary of their teacher, Clément Mathieu and they read it together.

On 15 January 1949, an unemployed music teacher Clement Mathieu (Gerald Jugnot) who finds a job working as a supervisor in a French school called 'Fond de l'Etang', a school whose name literally translates to "at the bottom of the pond". 'Fond de l'Etang' is a boarding school for orphans and problematic boys. At the gate, Mathieu sees a young child, Pépinot (Maxence Perrin) who is waiting for Saturday for his father to come for him. Unfortunately, Pépinot's parents were killed in World War II, he has not been told and still thinks that his father would come back on a Saturday for him.

The school is run by an egotistical disciplinarian principal M. Rachin (François Berléand) and the motto of the school is "Action - Reaction", meaning that there will severe punishments for any boy who is 'out of the line'. Obviously, this method isn't working as the boys continue to misbehave. Mathieu does not believe in the "Action - Reaction" policy and sets out to change the boys using his own methods. One night, Mathieu discovers the boys singing rude songs about him behind his back, including ones that refer to him as "cueball" for his baldness, he instead reacts positively by stating that "some of them even had good voices" and plan to acquaint them with the magic and power of music. With his methods, Mathieu changes the lives of the boys, of the other employees and his own.

A truly inspiring, touching and magnificent film that is engaging and enchanting from the very first scene. Especially, towards the end of the film, when Mathieu is fired for breaking the rule and asked to leave the school, the boys who are forbidden to say goodbye, throw messages to him on paper planes out of the window to the beautiful song, "Cerf-Volant".

Music gives a soul to the universe, 
wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.

Les-Choristes - Vois Sur Ton Chemin

Les-Choristes - Cerf Volant

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