On the Way to School

Jackson lives in Kenya and crosses the savannah with his sister to get to school; there are elephants on the way and so they run. Zahira is in the Atlas mountains of Morocco; she walks to her boarding school with two friends and the road takes hours. Samuel is in southern India and cannot use his legs; his two younger brothers push him in a wheelchair and the wheel keeps breaking. Carlito is on the Patagonian plain in Argentina; he sets off each morning on horseback with his little sister behind him. Pascal Plisson directs. It is a French production. The four children are real and their journeys to school really are like this; the film follows them along their own routes. The matter it treats is the price of schooling; for these children education is not a right but something won every morning. The film shows the families too; most of the parents did not go to school and make a separate effort to send their children. The narrative gives the four stories in turn and finishes none of them; each closes on arrival at school. The photography brings the landscape forward and the roads are shot as though they were the subject. The documentary gives the impression that some scenes were arranged, and that was argued over. The narrative gives particular weight to girls' struggle to attend school. The ending closes as all four children enter a classroom. Its limit is depth; the narrative is simple, there is no political context, and the emotional steering is plain. Who it is for: people looking for a documentary to watch as a family and viewers interested in education. Who it is not for: it is simple, surface level, and the ending emotional.