Leon Blum High School, named after the first Jewish prime minister of France, sits in a depressed suburb of Paris populated mainly by Muslims. The majority of the students in Anne Gueguen’s history and geography class are bored and unruly. It’s a wonder she’s able to teach them anything.
This is the setting of Once in a Lifetime, a French-language feature film with English subtitles written and directed by Marie Castille Mention-Schaar. Kicking off a new season of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival’s Chai Tea & A Movie series, it will be screened at the Cineplex Cinemas Empress Walk Theater (5095 Yonge Street) on Sunday, October 25 at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.
Based on a true story, Once in a Lifetime is inspiring in substance and tone. It’s essentially about a dogged teacher who doesn’t give up on her underachieving students and takes them to new and unforeseen academic heights.
Gueguen (Ariane Ascaride) has no illusions about her students. Most of them are apathetic, disruptive and contemptuous of learning. In an attempt to jar them out of their lethargy, she asks them to collectively participate in a national essay contest on the treatment of Jewish and Roma adolescents and children in Nazi concentration camps.
The initial reaction is negative.
“Why always the Jews?” a hostile student asks.
“Jews don’t concern me,” says another one.
“We have other stuff to do,” claim other students.
Despite the poor reception, Gueguen persists, delivering a brief lecture on the Nazi concentration camp system, followed by an explanation of Nazi genocide.
One student of Arab origin claims that genocide is taking place in Palestine, but Gueguen disagrees.
She’s clearly fighting an uphill battle. The students, lacking self-confidence in their abilities, doubt whether they’re up to the task. Even the school principal is skeptical.
But after they visit a Holocaust memorial in Paris, they wade into the project. One of the students, a French convert to Islam, leaves the class in disgust. But the rest press on, plainly moved by a class presentation delivered by a Holocaust survivor.
Invigorated by his talk, they learn to work together as a unit, generating ideas that impress Gueguen.
The film, an object lesson in the value of persistence, discipline and dedication, is neither didactic nor condescending, thankfully enough. Ascaride delivers a strong performance as the teacher who has faith in her pupils, and the young actors who portray them are terrific.
Once in a Lifetime reminds us yet again that little miracles are possible, even under the worst of circumstances.