Chez nous by Lucas Belvaux (review)

Reviews 239 mentioned in the chapter. These notes, as well as contexts and directions for activities, are in French beginning with chapter 3. All of these freestanding cultural inputs are perfect motivators for students to learn French through culture and even occasional travel. An often neglected component, pronunciation is addressed in each chapter by targeting isolated sounds. In conjunction with the integrated film, students are guided to recognize the targeted sound in a certain clip and then practice it.A dictée completes the exercise. Importantly, an early cultural note makes students aware of the tradition of the dictée in French schools.“Liaisons culturelles”highlight customs in the Francophone world with an emphasis on their similarities and differences. They provide paragraph-length material to develop both the reading and writing skills. Tools are provided for a process approach, including pre- and post- reading and writing activities. One such fascinating contemporary topic is the emerging restructuring of the family in Togo due to increasing urbanization. Four “Découvertes culturelles” introduce art, architecture, technology, science, literature, and cinema in accessible paragraph length presentations. Grammar presentations are accompanied by “Pour aller plus loin” notes indicating structures that are useful but not necessarily needed for mastery at this level. Most are appropriately classified, but one such item placed here that should definitely be mastered early is“chez”due to its high frequency usage. Others are “moi” after an affirmative command and “avoir faim/soif/chaud/froid,” all of which are basic to conversational interchanges. The authors have been very careful to design a program replete with opportunities to create meaningful language from input that is interesting, engaging, and purposeful. La Salle University (PA) Leonard Marsh Film edited by Cheira Lewis Belvaux, Lucas, réal. Chez nous. Int. Émilie Dequenne, André Dussollier, Guillaume Gouix. Le Pacte, 2017. Controversial and politically-charged, this fiction film explores the attraction nationalist, populist discourse seems to hold for working-class French voters.Although borrowing from Jérôme Leroy’s 2011 crime-novel, Le bloc, Chez nous has strong roots as well in contemporary sociopolitical reality. Its geography and central character are meticulously established. In the opening sequence, sunrise gradually illuminates rolling agricultural land and the trucks crossing it on a multilane highway. A lone tractor tilling in the distance halts—a zoom-in on an unexploded shell unearthed by the plow’s blades. Distinctive row houses along a quiet street suggest a town in le Nord. A young woman emerges from one and drives off.We follow her.As the day advances, viewers come to know Pauline Duhez (Émilie Dequenne), well-liked, respected, single mother of two youngsters, daughter of a former miner. An infirmière à domicile— hard-working, efficient, compassionate—she nonetheless sometimes finds it difficult to make ends meet each month. Her interactions with family, friends, and patients introduce the community’s problematic social and cultural issues—unemployment, scarcity of adequate social services, rising crime rate, traditions modified by contact with an influx of immigrants—topics frequently emphasized by politicians of the farright populist persuasion. Three influential male characters surround Pauline, each representing a distinct emotional influence as well as a particular political viewpoint. Berthier (André Dussollier), the amiable family doctor, helped when her mother was dying from cancer and was instrumental in urging her into nursing. However, he is also a Machiavellian political operator (people call him an“old Fascist”) currently working with a new party, the Rassemblement national populaire, headed by a woman who bears a marked resemblance—physically and politically—to Marine Le Pen. Stéphane Stankowiak (Guillaume Gouix), a lost high-school love, reappears and the flame between them reignites; but, unbeknown to Pauline, his anti-immigration attitude (ironic given his surname) stems from his membership in a Neo-Nazi group. Pauline cares for her father, who suffers physical ills and still mourns his wife’s passing. As an old-time left-wing union activist, he cannot understand his daughter’s apolitical attitude; and becomes completely dismayed when, falling under the siren call of the RNP’s “pour la France,” Pauline agrees to run for mayor in the upcoming municipal elections. With this decision the fabric of her life suddenly begins...