Radical

A film set in Matamoros, a border town in northern Mexico. The school is in a bad state. Its exam results are the lowest in the country, the computers have been stolen, the lavatories are broken, and the rubbish dump backs onto the grounds. Sergio is the new teacher. On the first day he goes in, scatters the desks, and puts the textbooks aside. His method works through questions. Instead of giving an answer he sets a problem and the pupils try it themselves. The head does not like it. The national exam is coming and the school is supposed to be drilling for the test. Three pupils come forward. Paloma does mathematics; she picks scrap at the dump with her father and has an encyclopaedia at home. Nico's older brother is in a gang. Lupe looks after her siblings at home and is about to leave school. From there the film runs across a year. A model boat, an experiment with gravity, a library and the day of the exam. When the results come the school is near the top of the national ranking. What the narrative is interested in is not success but the cost: the film shows that not all of the children are saved and says so plainly in its last section. The violence is not in the background. The gang presence in the town, the disappearances and the fear come into the classroom. The source is a real event. There was a magazine article about a teacher's method in Matamoros and a girl in his class who topped the exam, and the film came out of it. The tone is hopeful and the ending is bitter. The narrative follows the classic teacher-film pattern and then breaks it. Eugenio Derbez, Daniel Haddad, Jennifer Trejo and Danilo Guardiola are in the cast. Christopher Zalla wrote and directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes adaptations of real events about education. Who it is not for: anyone troubled by the template; the structure is familiar and the music keeps pointing at the feeling.