[Film Review] "Radical": The "learning with true passion" classes depicted in this film are what we need.

Introduction

This film tells the story of an elementary school teacher who arrives in a Mexican community where crime and poverty are part of daily life, and leads his students to achieve the top grades in the country through free and innovative education. Because it is based on a true story, it avoids being a fantasy and possesses a reality that makes it a wonderful work capable of influencing the lives of its audience.

Story

An elementary school in Matamoros, Mexico, near the U.S. border. The children grow up in an environment where crime, such as drugs and murder, is a constant neighbor; educational facilities are lacking, teachers are unmotivated, and academic performance is among the lowest in the country. With more than half of the sixth-grade class at risk of not graduating, Juarez, a teacher from Matamoros, arrives as a substitute for the sixth-grade homeroom teacher who resigned due to pregnancy.

When the students enter the classroom, the desks and chairs are stacked to the side, and he says, "This is a lifeboat. Every boat has the same capacity. Those who cannot board will drown. There are 23 of you and 6 boats. What will you do?" At first, the students are confused, but they gradually begin to think seriously while cooperating. This leads to questions: Why do ships float or sink? They use an encyclopedia to look up what they don't know.

Through Juarez's unique and unconventional classes, the children discover the joy of inquiry and begin to blossom in their respective interests and talents. However, an unexpected tragedy strikes them.

An ensemble drama that balances individual conflicts to express the theme in three dimensions

Mr. Juarez does not teach the educational curriculum aligned with the ENLACE, a national exam for Mexican elementary schools, at all. Instead, he draws out what the students are interested in from within the lessons and has them research it themselves. In doing so, it is discovered that one student, Paloma, has an exceptional talent for physics. Mr. Juarez supports Paloma's dream of becoming an aerospace engineer. The principal, initially confused by Mr. Juarez's educational philosophy, decides to support him.

This film is depicted from the three perspectives of Mr. Juarez, the principal, and the students, giving it depth and making it easy to empathize with. By focusing the true story on the teacher and three students, the narrative progresses in a three-dimensional way, and the director's own life synchronizes with the teacher's life, making it a wonderful human drama. Mr. Juarez is a real person. He spent five years teaching according to the government-mandated curriculum, but it was boring for both the students and the teacher. Not only were test scores poor, but even the students who got good grades were not engaged. The real Mr. Juarez still continues to teach at that school today. While depicting Mr. Juarez's struggles as a human being to allow for empathy, the film focuses on three students: Paloma, Nico, and Lupe. The children also have their own family circumstances and are not in a state where they can easily study. The principal's perspective is the one closest to the audience.

While this kind of story is common, the fact that it is based on a true story gives it persuasiveness, and setting it in a dangerous city in Mexico feels fresh. It highlights the problems and talents of children raised in poor environments. They have to raise their younger brothers and sisters. They have to sell scrap metal. The students' grades improve even without teaching according to the curriculum.

Finally, watching the path of learning taken by the students who achieve high scores on the test, I even thought that it is better for life to take the long way around.

The teacher's classes synchronize with the director's own life

Christopher Zalla, the director of this film, like Mr. Juarez, reset his life in order to live his own true life. Exhausted by the capitalist system of the film industry, which forced him to create projects he didn't want to do, he moved with his family to a remote lakeside house in the countryside to restart his life.

However, after being away from the industry for several years, the chance to make a film did not come easily. It was then that a producer brought this project to the director.

For the director, making this film was an act similar to the protagonist teacher's teaching—creating work honestly and doing it with true passion while working.

About the filming

The film was shot with three multi-cams to capture the raw performances and expressions of the students chosen through auditions. While the handheld-like, dynamic footage is characteristic, I didn't realize it was multi-cam. The cameras were apparently set at the eye level of elementary school students.

Reflections after watching this film

Is school meant to teach academics, or is it a facility to educate people to adapt to the social system? I began to think about this question several years ago after listening to Ayumu Yasutomi of the University of Tokyo and reading his books.

He says that the educational methods of schools themselves have not changed in 100 years.

Wasn't 100 years ago a culturally significant time when movies were just being made and jazz was born, while at the same time the world was becoming dyed in the capitalist system?

Cramming education that forces people into a mold turns them into individuals who suppress their true desires and spontaneity, adapting them instead to the social system.

By losing their humanity and abandoning the act of thinking for themselves, people become part of the social system, and instead of stopping the system's runaway nature, they end up complicit in it. This is something I always think about when looking at recent political and social issues in Japan.

And if the cause of that lies in schools, how can we raise children so that they can live lives where they can utilize their potential with true feelings?

This film depicts such an ideal way for a school to be. Moreover, it is a true story. Watching this film, various things flashed before my eyes like a revolving lantern. My junior high school days when I was a truant and didn't know why I was studying. The existence of a teacher in junior high who taught me the joy of idle chatter. The fact that nothing was useful to me except for what I studied with my heart after encountering movies.

Living with 'true feelings' is difficult. This is because school education teaches us to live in a mold. Breaking away from that would be difficult. However, if one were to meet a teacher like Mr. Juárez in elementary school, wouldn't life become richer? Stopping excessive capitalist society and the resulting inequality might start with making school education much richer.

Summary

Watching this film made me think about living, learning, and teaching. This was a wonderful human drama that makes a wide range of viewers, who are walking various paths in life, think about many different things.

Direction ☆☆☆
Visuals ☆☆☆
Story ☆☆☆☆
Theme ☆☆☆☆☆
75 points