The children of Monsieur Mathieu

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Movie
German title The children of Monsieur Mathieu
Original title Les Choristes
Country of production France , Switzerland , Germany
original language French
Publishing year 2004
length 93 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
JMK 6
Rod
Director Christophe Barratier
script Christophe Barratier ,
Philippe Lopes-Curval
production Arthur Cohn ,
Jacques Perrin ,
Nicolas Mauvernay
music Bruno Coulais ,
Christophe Barratier
camera Dominique Gentil ,
Carlo Varini
cut Yves Deschamps
occupation

The Children of Monsieur Mathieu (original title: Les Choristes ) is a Franco-Swiss cinema film from 2004. It is one of the most successful French films of recent years, in France alone it attracted a good eight and a half million viewers to the cinemas. The film launch in Germany and German-speaking Switzerland was on September 2, 2004 (Austria: September 3). The film La cage aux rossignols ( The Nightingale Cage ) from 1945 was used as the script . During the remake, the roles of the children were consistently cast by laypeople. The choral singing plays an important role in terms of content and atmosphere. The music recordings were sung by the children's choir Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc (The Little Singers of Saint Mark) from Lyon , which also included Jean-Baptiste Maunier , whose acting and singing career began with this film.

action

Framework: Pierre Morhange, a famous conductor , learns of his mother's death in New York . He flies to France to attend the funeral. Then Pépinot, his former schoolmate from the "Fond de l'Etang" (French: "Bottom of the pond"), a boarding school for boys from difficult backgrounds, visits him . Pépinot gives Morhange the diary of her supervisor at the time, Clément Mathieu, which brings back long-forgotten memories.

1949: Clément Mathieu enters boarding school as an unsuccessful musician to work as a guard ( pedell ) for the students. Little Pépinot is standing at the gate waiting for his father. The orphan Pépinot believes that he will pick him up, even though he, like his mother, died in the war. The caretaker Maxence leads Mathieu to Rachin, the boarding school director, who complains about Mathieu's late arrival. As Maxence is injured in a student prank, can Rachin to appeal ringing. Since no one admits to his guilt, Mathieu is asked by Rachin to choose any boy from the list of names for the punishment. Mathieu's predecessor Régent reveals the guilty party to Mathieu: Le Querrec. Instead of betraying him to the director, Mathieu obliges the boy to take care of the injured Maxence during the breaks.

After Mathieu heard the boys sing a mocking song (crooked) one evening , he had the idea of ​​teaching the boys to sing. He begins to compose the first melodies. When Pierre Morhange, according to Régent a particularly bad student, annoys the director with a drawing, he has to go to the dungeon . While he is there, his mother Violette wants to visit him on an unscheduled basis; Mathieu should send her away. He explains to her that she cannot see her son as he is at the dentist, nothing bad. Mathieu is carried away by the beautiful woman and falls in love with her.

In the next lesson, Mathieu lets the boys sing and classifies them according to their voices. He wants to found a choir , but when he asks Rachin for permission, he is not very enthusiastic. However, he lets Mathieu go.

The choir, now legitimized by the director, is constantly rehearsing and getting better and better. Pierre Morhange, who is also forced to do charitable work after the weeks in prison, listens to the choir rehearsals. After a rehearsal, he sneaks into the classroom and starts singing to himself. Some time later he is caught by Mathieu. He is enthusiastic about Morhange's voice. From now on he will receive individual lessons and will support the choir as a solo singer.

The highly aggressive Mondain came to the school in February and has been harassing students and teachers since then . When he disappears during a sports lesson and a little later Rachin complains about the loss of 2,000 francs , the director is beside himself. In his anger, he blames Mathieu and the sports teacher Chabert and forbids the choir. He also has to suspend ordering new coal for heating again as almost all of his savings have been stolen. Chabert encourages Mathieu to disregard the choir ban and strict discipline orders and uses the director's personal wood supplies to give the boys their first hot bath in weeks. From now on the choir will rehearse “underground”.

When Mondain is brought back by the police a few days later, Rachin tries to beat the whereabouts of the money out of him. After many blows in the face, Mondain jumps up and tries to strangle Rachin, but is prevented by the rushing Chabert and his colleagues. Rachin now has him finally arrested by the police for theft and attempted murder.

In the days that followed, Morhange watched Mathieu spend more time with his mother than he did himself. While Mathieu told her about Morhange's improved classroom performance and his exceptional singing talent, he was showered with ink from the upstairs window in Morhange. When the mother and teacher then find out who is responsible for the prank, the mother leaves the boarding school disappointed and ashamed. As a punishment, Mathieu cancels Morhange solo parts in the choir. At a later meeting between Mathieu and Morhange's mother, she reveals to him that she had met an engineer with whom she would move to Lyon for a life together - Mathieu is deeply disappointed.

When word got around that the problem boys were successfully rehearsing as a choir, Madame la Comtesse , a sponsor of the school, wanted to hear the choir sing too . The director is outraged about the continued existence of the choir, but does not want to create a bad impression on the Comtesse and lets the boys sing. During the performance Morhange is allowed to sing his previous solo again, he is happy and grateful and reconciles with Mathieu.

A surprising find in a “secret” hiding place makes it clear that it was not Mondain who stole the money, as suspected, but a boy named Corbin, who originally gave Mathieu the idea of ​​the choir with his “wrong” singing. Mathieu reports Mondain's innocence to the director, but Rachin doesn't care about the clarification, as he regards the violent boy as a failure anyway. He makes his way to Lyon , where he is to receive a medal from the Comtesse for his services. Just arrived he learns that the boarding school is on fire and that Mondain has escaped from prison. He returns quickly; numerous concerned parents have already gathered. At that moment Mathieu returns with the boys from the forest, where they spent lesson time playing games in the absence of the director. Mathieu is dismissed for failure to supervise. Rachin also forbids him to say goodbye to his students. Mathieu leaves school disappointed, but becomes aware of the singing that comes from the open window of the classroom. The boys fly paper planes into the courtyard, where they thank their teacher. Mathieu is touched by this gesture and draws new hope for his future and the future of his students.

Mathieu's diaries end here. In the present, the grown-up Morhange reports (in flashback with narration) how things went on for him and his friends: Morhange is taken from school by his mother and goes with her to Lyon, where he then goes to a conservatory . The engineer leaves after a short time, but the mother and son stay there together. Director Rachin is fired for his harsh regime after the students testify against him as witnesses. When Mathieu leaves boarding school and wants to get on the bus, Pépinot comes running and asks Mathieu to take him with him. Mathieu first sends him back, but then changes his mind and accepts him. That day is a Saturday - Pépinot was right, because his father was supposed to pick him up on a Saturday.

synchronization

The film was dubbed at PPA Film in Munich . Mina Kindl wrote the dialogue book and directed the dialogue.

role actor Voice actor
Clement Mathieu Gérard Jugnot Frank-Otto Schenk
Rachin François Berléand Reinhard Glemnitz
Chabert Kad Merad Udo Wachtveitl
Père Maxence Jean-Paul Bonnaire Horst Sachtleben
Violet Morhange Marie Bunel Elisabeth Günther
Morhange (young) Jean-Baptiste Maunier Manuel Reuss
Morhange (old) Jacques Perrin Joachim Höppner
Pépinot (young) Maxence Perrin Maximilian Belle
Pépinot (old) Didier Flamand Peter Fricke
Mondain Gregory Gatignol Clemens Ostermann

criticism

The film received mostly positive reviews and achieved a Rotten Tomatoes ranking of 68%.

“I warmly recommend 'The Children of Monsieur Mathieu' to everyone else. Because what captivates the film is not its realism, but rather the warmth with which director and author Christophe Barratier leads through the story. Even if the soft focus is omnipresent, it does not change the emotional power that the optimistic drama exudes and which, according to The fabulous world of Amélie , makes it the French feel-good movie of the past decade. "

- Björn Helbig : film starts

“This 'classicism' is of course very entertaining. The 95 minutes of film really rush past our eyes and ears, don't bore you for a second and leave a beautiful, perhaps sentimental impression. But it's not a deep impression. "

- critic.de

“Over six million French people fell in love with this heartfelt contemplation of a time full of pain and despair, joy, friendship and a wild will to discover. The attempt to wrest a bit of happiness from life in spite of adverse circumstances becomes a tender ode to childhood with all its hopes and fears, to the years full of longing that shape us and never let go as adults. "

- kino.de

useful information

  • Like the character Clément Mathieu in the film, director Christophe Barratier is an unsuccessful musician. He is a trained guitarist and has also (co-) composed some of the songs sung in the film.
  • Almost the entire family of the producer Jacques Perrin was involved in the production: his nephew as the director, his wife as his assistant, his son as the actor of the boy Pepinot, his sister as the press officer and he himself as the actor of the adult Pierre Morhange.
  • The piano part of Vois sur ton chemin was partially taken over by Christina Aguilera in the single Oh Mother from the album Back to basics .
  • The location was among other things the Ravel Castle in the Puy-de-Dôme department .

Soundtrack

The songs played / sung are in the order of the film:

  1. Nous sommes de Fond de l'Étang
  2. Vois sur ton chemin
  3. Caresse sur l'océan
  4. Lueur d'été
  5. Kyrie
  6. Cerf valance
  7. La nuit, music by Jean-Philippe Rameau
  8. Maréchal, nous voilà

Awards

Nominations

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for The Children of Monsieur Mathieu . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2006 (PDF; test number: 98 713 V / DVD).
  2. ↑ Age rating for The Children of Monsieur Mathieu . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | The children of Monsieur Mathieu. Retrieved March 6, 2018 .
  4. ^ Björn Helbig: Critique of the FILMSTARTS.de editorial team. The children of Monsieur Mathieu. Retrieved August 18, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Roberto Dzugan: The Chorus. September 1, 2004, accessed on August 18, 2015 (review from critic.de).
  6. ^ Margret Köhler: film review. to The children of Monsieur Mathieu. In: kino.de. August 11, 2004, accessed August 18, 2015 .
  7. ↑ End credits of the film (playing time 1:31:20)
  8. ↑ the entire soundtrack of the film on youtube.com