Film: Beginnings and Endings

BERTRAND TAVERNIER is the most enterprising, various, humane, and sensitive filmmaker in France today-or, more simply put, the finest. Starting with The Clockmaker, the now-59-year-old director has turned out every kind of film. Some may remember him best for the thriller The Judge and the Assassin, others for the historical Let the Feast Begin, many for the family saga A Sunday in the Country or the antiwar Life and Nothing But. Still others for the jazz film Round Midnight, shot partly in New York. There are several other films just as good, and now comes his 19th feature, the masterly It All Starts Today.

This is a film about a kindergarten somewhere in the north of France. The actual one used is in Anzin, a suburb of Valenciennes. It is in the heart of what was once coal-mining country; Zola’s Germinal takes place nearby. Always poor, these folk-with the closing of the mines and widespread unemployment—are now at rock bottom. The kindergarten teachers try to keep the minds and spirits of the tots going, despite a lack of money, hygiene, and even food in most of the homes they come from.

JS

About the Author

John Simon

Featured Tags

BERTRAND TAVERNIER is the most enterprising, various, humane, and sensitive filmmaker in France today-or, more simply put, the finest. Starting with The Clockmaker, the now-59-year-old director has turned out every kind of film. Some may remember him best for the thriller The Judge and the Assassin, others for the historical Let the Feast Begin, many for the family saga A Sunday in the Country or the antiwar Life and Nothing But. Still others for the jazz film Round Midnight, shot partly in New York. There are several other films just as good, and now comes his 19th feature, the masterly It All Starts Today.

This is a film about a kindergarten somewhere in the north of France. The actual one used is in Anzin, a suburb of Valenciennes. It is in the heart of what was once coal-mining country; Zola’s Germinal takes place nearby. Always poor, these folk-with the closing of the mines and widespread unemployment—are now at rock bottom. The kindergarten teachers try to keep the minds and spirits of the tots going, despite a lack of money, hygiene, and even food in most of the homes they come from.