Miss Violet

Written and directed by Éric Besnard, this French period film is set in 1889 and follows Louise Violet, a teacher in her forties sent from Paris into the countryside. The Jules Ferry laws had made primary education free, compulsory and secular, and Louise's job is to make the villages accept it, but neither the children nor their parents want her and the farmers see school as a waste of time and labor. Louise is also a former Communarde who took part in the Paris Commune, and the film opens on that history. Its most notable choice is to present the villagers not as brutes in need of education but as people who need to be persuaded. Louise Violet is not a real historical figure but a fictional composite, though the transformation behind her is real: the first women graduated from teacher training colleges in 1886. Besnard deliberately chose a female protagonist over the archetypal male schoolmaster. It was shot entirely in the Auvergne across two periods, winter and spring, to capture the rhythm of the seasons, and the crew planted wheat in September so they could film a real harvest the following year. Alexandra Lamy's first period costume role, the film drew over six hundred sixty thousand admissions in France, earning mixed notices from the press while audiences responded markedly more warmly. Who it's for: Viewers who enjoy French period drama and are curious about the history of education and secularism. Who it's not for: Not for anyone seeking formal invention, since critics most often faulted the direction as too classical and short on energy.