Original title: Escuela Normal
Country: Argentina
Direction: Celina Murga
Writers: Celina Murga, Juan Villegas
Cinematography: Fernando Lockett
Edition: Juan Pablo Docampo
Sound edition: Federico González
Runtime: 88 minutes
Year: 2012
7 points
The school was a world
By Rodrigo Seijas
The documentary by Celina Murga, Normal school, enters the hallways and classrooms of a school from the province of Entre Ríos, showing the interactions between the pupils, professors and authorities, narrating the vicissitudes of the election of the student center, the daily problems of the building, the unwavering routines, the instituted rites, the debates to short and long term.
What the director achieves to is, foremost, a very entertaining and bearable film, especially because it does achieves what seems very difficult in the genre: to narrate (sometimes the documentaries become great narrations and this is the case).
As from the look that provides Murga in Normal school, not only the narration is fluid, but also arises great characters, like the headmistress, a never stopping working machine that does fifty thousand things at the same time: for example, the scene where interrogates different kids to find out who threw some bulbs is hilarious.
It should be noted that, without being a wonder, this documentary turns out to be an attractive outline of what might be a theme, a memorable space to analyze, think and enjoy, such as the high school. Besides, it accomplishes the most important and difficult: to introduce the cinema in a place as mundane as elusive of our lives.
Editor´s note: this review, with changes, was published during the BAFICI 2012.