Author: Stuart Fleet

December: 15th 2009
The Chorus (Les Choristes) 2003 Director: Christophe Barratier Certificate 12A Sub titles

In 1949, Clément Mathieu, an unemployed music teacher, is hired as supervisor in a somewhat notorious boarding school for troubled children. The particularly repressive Rachin, the school’s director, has trouble keeping these difficult pupils in line. By introducing them to the magic of singing, Mathieu changes their lives forever. Within the short duration of a school term or two he fulfilled his modest ambition of having a choir sing the music he wrote; after which he subsequently moved along to a continuously modest life of teaching and music. Upon release this film took France by storm: ‘Les Choristes’ purportedly led to a surge in applications to join choirs all over the country. The magic is unquestionably in the music and ultimately lies with the choir and boy soprano, Jean-Baptiste Maunier, chosen from two thousand auditions.

15th September 2009
Babette’s Feast 1987 Director: Gabriel Axel – Sub titles. Certificate U

This Danish film with a French star, directed by Gabriel Axel, deservedly won the best foreign film Oscar and captured the imagination of cinema-goers everywhere. Set in the 1870s, the story unfolds against the background of the grim Jutland peninsula, where two spinster sisters (Bodil Kjer and Birgitte Federspiel), daughters of the former pastor, continue his work in leading the religious sect he founded. Into their lives comes Babette (Stéphane Audran), who becomes their housekeeper seeking refuge from war-torn Paris. Her presence gradually effects changes in the austere community, culminating in a magnificent feast that she cooks 14 years later, which serves as a profoundly cathartic event in the lives of all. Faithfully and brilliantly adapted by Axel from the story by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), this highly original and deeply poignant tale, leavened with well-judged humour is that rare thing — a perfect work… resist it if you can.