Educational Media Reviews Online

School of Babel (La cour de Babel) is the engaging, warm true story of a teacher, whose love and patience conquer an astonishing amount of obstacles in the lives of her students, all of whom are recent émigrés to France. Coming from countries all over the globe and comprising multiple languages and religions, the students come each day to the Granges-aux-Belles school in Paris’ 10th arrondissement to attend a special class for eleven to fifteen year olds. This “reception class” is designed to acclimate these newcomers to the French language and to prepare them to enter regular classes when they are ready. Bertuccelli’s film covers one year at Granges-aux-Belles, a special one, the last year of teacher Brigitte Cervoni who is moving on to become a national education inspector supervising 300 teachers.

Her students are highly motivated, full of pluck, badgered by all the turmoil that most adolescents face, with additional struggles that come with being foreigners in a strange land. Some haven’t seen their parents in decades. Others have little time for homework as they are often times the parent’s primary interpreter. Still others have been abused and face even more abuse if they are sent back to their country of origin. A poignant moment of the film is the revelation that 11 year old Djenabou faces female circumcision and forced marriage if she returns to her home country of Guinea. Yet through all this anxiety and pressure the students learn and grow. Perhaps their greatest achievement is that fact that they coalesce into a strong body capable of supporting each other.

There isn’t a narrator to inform or direct. Instead Bertuccelli uses an observational or direct cinema approach. We are the proverbial fly on the wall, watching and listening to what happens in the classroom. She allows the students to be the focus of the film. We meet the parents in conferences, and hear Cervoni communicating and advising her young charges, but the children carry the story line. We view the passage of time through the changing foliage of a single tree in the school yard. The entire film is enhanced by Olivier Daviaud’s beautiful score.

School of Babel is highly recommended and is appropriate for audiences ranging from middle school up to general adult. It could be used as in courses such as French studies (for language comprehension and culture), education, cultural anthropology, religion, family studies, film studies or simply for general interest.