Seite 185 [185]
GROWING TOGETHER OR APART?...
in Aloisio’s film, there is now a greater awareness of the vulnerability of
immigrant children. In this context, the teachers in Godbout’s film deserve
to be applauded, not only Nicholai Nikolevitch and the teacher of Italian
origin who reflect on the vulnerabilities of children in their class, but also the
Québécoise teacher who allows them space for reflection and discussion in
order to build their self-confidence, and therefore their emotional resilience.
The child who cannot remember life in Africa (whether because the shock of
arrival to Québec erased his memories or for some other reason) should not
be berated for not feeling able to “integrate”, as long as the memories he has
lost remain a more burning issue for him.
The potential vulnerabilities of schoolchildren are also evident in La Classe
de Madame Lise, Groulx’s documentary film about six and seven year old
primary children in Québec, despite the somewhat “cutesy” quality of the
adorable and often outspoken kids. As in Godbout’s film, the children all
come from the non-majority population, with the Québécois de souche
only represented by some teachers. In this case, the context is the socially
disadvantaged district of Parc-Extension in Montreal. The principal of the
school describes this area as bounded by barriers constituted by trainlines
and motorways that disconnect it from the heart of the city, in a parallel
with the last scene of the recent French film La Vie scolaire by Grand Corps
Malade and Mehdi Idir.’’ The latter film ends with an image of one of the main
characters, of Arab descent, staring out from a tall school building at Paris
beyond the ring road of the périphérique, in a clear image of the corralling of
most of the poorer classes and immigrants outside the city walls. The city of
Paris, intramuros, represents the success that seems unattainable to the Arab
boy. Social ghettoization is not dwelt on in Groulx’s film, however, and nor
are the problems many of the children must have had in adapting to life in
French in school in the years prior to entering Madame Lise’s class. Madame
Lise’s class is not technically a classe daccueil and it is in fact assumed that her
pupils are now in mainstream education, having experienced their adaptation
period to French in earlier years. The challenges that potentially face them,
for example, integrating into mainstream Québec society, are often more
implied than explicit. We see this for example in the scenes near the start of
the film, where the children are being dropped off from school by parents from
almost exclusively recent immigrant backgrounds, many of whom will have
challenges relating to linguistic and cultural acquisition.
Despite the lack of explicit commentary, it is nonetheless clear in Groulx’s
film that some of the children are in need of special intervention. One of these
is a physically small and quiet boy, who is intelligent and who could succeed
17 Grand Corps Malade — Idhir, Mehdi, La Vie Scolaire, Paris, Mandarin Production and
Kallouche Cinéma, 2019.
* 183 *