It All Starts Today
The Age
Thursday September 18, 2008
It All Starts Today
Umbrella, 113 min, M, drama, 19993/5.5French director Bertrand Tavernier's It All Starts Today is set in a small town in Northern France in what was once a mining district. It is a place where poverty has become familiar and routine. At the film's centre is a kindergarten, run by Daniel (Philippe Torreton), an energetic teacher as well as an administrator, a volatile man who tries to make a difference to the lives of his students, but who can be impatient and self-critical, and who has an edgy relationship with his father and his stepson. Times are tough and most things are difficult in the world that Tavernier evokes. He balances optimism and pessimism, but he is not judgemental about teachers, or parents, or bureaucrats, nor is he blindly optimistic about the redemptive powers that Daniel can exercise. This is a graceful, dogged, thoughtful film about a community and a landscape, about daily routines, disappointing reversals and small victories. It's about the world of young children and the possibilities that they represent. And one of its pleasing aspects is the way it allows us to get to know a group of children, rather than singling out a few individuals.DVD extras include: making-of
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