alice’s posterous

Yesterday night, I watched Looking for Eric directed by Ken Loach and starring Steve Evets as a depressed postman from Manchester and Eric Cantona as "lui-même" or himself!
Ken Loach is not known for making funny and uplifting films. I remember watching Sweet Sixteen or It's a Free World... and feeling so depressed afterwards! However Looking for Eric was funny and touching at the same time. Ken Loach still describes working class people and confused teenagers who have stopped going to school. Eric Bishop is a football fanatic postman whose life is descending into crisis. But this time there is optimism. Eric's hallucinations bring forth visits from his football hero, the famously philosophical Eric Cantona, who gives him advice. Thanks to Cantona and with the help of his friends, Eric Bishop will overcome his problems.

Ken Loach said of the film, "We wanted to deflate the idea of celebrities as more than human. And we wanted to make a film that was enjoying the idea of what you and I would call solidarity, but what others would call support for your friends really, and the old idea that we are stronger as a team than we are as individuals."

Two important points why I enjoyed watching the film:

• the comic situation in that a Frenchman gives a lesson to an Englishman ;)
• the fact that we are stronger as a team and that football is a team sport and not individual players scoring amazing goals. When Bishop asks Cantona his best moment in his football career, Cantona says: "it's not a goal, it's a pass". That is what football is all about!

I thoroughly recommend seeing it. My favourite quotes are "I'm not a man, I'm Cantona." and "He who is afraid to throw the dice, will never throw a six." :))

Plus d'infos sur ce film

What about you? Have you watched the film? Did you enjoy it?

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Click here to download:

Amelie_Poulain.doc (3299 KB)

This is a fantastic workbook about the French film Le fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain. I found it on the TES website and it was created by aliciagomez.

I used this workbook with my year 10 class (15 years old) during the last week of school year. The first part of the workbook is to be completed before watching the film. They are facts about the film and the actors. The second part is to be completed after watching the film or when watching and you can pause for each section to be filled.

The film is set in the heart of Paris in Montmartre and is a romantic comedy depicted parisian life. During the film, we can see Amélie in famous parts of Paris: Notre Dame Cathedral, St. Martin's Canal, Basilica of the Sacré Cœur, La Gare du Nord.  The film also contains lots of references to French culture and way of life. For example, Amélie meets her cloistered neighbour, Raymond Dufayel, a painter who continually repaints Luncheon of the Boating Party (Le Déjeuner des canotiers) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. In the workbook students have to research this painting.

The flat where Amélie lives is typical of a parisian flat with the concierge, Madeleine Wallace who lives of the ground floor in her "lodge". The neighbourhood greengrocer where Mr Collignon and Lucien work is also very French!

My students enjoyed watching the film because each character has its own personality and is quite eccentric. They also discovered Paris and Parisians which they enjoyed. Personally this is one of my favourite film because I am a Parisian and Montmartre is the place where my cousins used to live, so I can relate to the scenes very well!

What about you? Do you use films to teach your students the culture of a language/country?

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David Lynch is an extravagant film director who is most famous for The Elephant man and Twin Peaks.

He has just set up The Interview Project which is a 20 000 miles road trip over 70 days accross the United States. David Lynch meets people in different locations and interviews them about their lives, how they would like to be remembered, what they are proud of.

I find this project quite fascinating as it is not about fame, it is about everyday people who are sharing a bit of their lives.
I enjoyed this interview with Palmer Black, a retired naval officer who lives with his wife in Blanding, Utah. He says he wants to be remembered for "his barbecue and making people around him happy".

http://interviewproject.davidlynch.com/www/#/all-episodes/004-palmer_black

What is your favourite interview? what do you want to be remembered of?

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This is again a brilliant animation from Ideas to Inspire.



It could be used when teaching house and bedroom in another language, as well as verbs in the present tense.
After watching it, students would have to:

• describe the bedroom/ the characters
  
• write a narration for the story in the present tense
  
• think of an alternative ending

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I have been watching OSS 117 Rio ne répond plus, the second movie about the famous French secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath (who shall be referred to as Hubert, to spare you the tedious length of his name) and I've found it as funny (even funnier) than the previous one OSS 117 Le Caire, un nid d'espions.

Hubert (played by great actor Jean Dujardin) is the anti-hero, a parody of the traditional espionage movie. He is the stereotype of the arrogant Frenchman, misogynistic, a chauvinist, filled with racial, colonial and cultural prejudices. The character is so grotesque and exaggerated, it is impossible not to laugh at his stupidity. And when we laugh, we can do it without feeling guilty because it is not the Arabs, Jews or Chinese that we are laughing at, but the outdated attitude of the old-school Frenchman.
Hubert is a mix of Austin Powers and James Bond, but in the French way with alcohol, women, and deranged dance moves. It is very politically incorrect but it works because it is French!

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Recently, I enjoyed watching this controversial Moroccan movie by the female Muslim director Laila Marrakchi.

"The title Marock is a play on words based on the French name of Morocco Maroc and Rock as in Rock'n Roll.
Set in Casablanca, a Moroccan Muslim teen falls for a handsome and progressive-minded Jewish boy. High school is drawing to a close for 17-year-old Rita (Morjana Alaoui) and her carefree friends. When Rita meets fun-loving Youri (Matthieu Boujenah) and the pair hit it off, her liberal Muslim family's open-minds soon begin to close when they discover that their daughter's new boyfriend is Jewish." from Wikipedia.

I thought the tone was a bit naive as it is about teenagers and first love but behind the romance, we discover Morocco today. A country divided between rich and poor and where rich youngsters are living the same kind of life as youngsters in the western part. We also discover a liberal country where girls and women are quite freed from Muslim tights but where there is a strong divide between religious groups, in this case Muslims and Jewish. What stroke me was that Rita's brother comes back from the UK more Muslim than when he was living in Morocco. I thought the ending was a bit coward. Laila Marrakchi did not want to confront with a a difficult choice and so chose an "easier" way to end the film! But I will let you watch it and decide ;)

I also think it is a good film for French learners as wealthy Moroccan people still speak French most of the time and go to prestigious French schools to study. It makes you aware of the strong French legacy in Northern Africa.

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