School of Life is a good if not exact translation of L‘École Buissonnière, the original name of Nicolas Vanier’s latest family drama about embracing nature; the French title is an idiomatic expression that means playing truant or skipping school (or work) to revel outdoors. A novelist, environmentalist, and educator widely known overseas for travel books and documentaries about his expeditions to Siberia, Alaska, and the Yukon, Vanier returns to Sologne, the rural region of north-central France where he grew up. Though set in the late 1920s, well before the 56-year-old filmmaker was born, the movie is a semiautobiographical celebration of the land and its flora and fauna and evokes the moral obligation to respect and protect it.
Vanier’s work is just as personal as Berri’s, but the difference is that School of Life doesn’t traffic in nostalgia. Although he presents several characters fondly, Vanier emphasizes seriousness of purpose over playfulness. Paul, already wise beyond his years because of his previously hard life, is coming of age, and his wonder at his surroundings fuels his deliberations about order and balance in the relations not just between man and nature but between man and man. You can spot the potential beginnings of a future in conservation in Paul’s gaze, which the camera follows, tilting upward and dizzily panning in search of birds in the treetops, or tracking deer, boar, and the elusive, majestic 18-point stag the locals have enshrined in myth (Vanier holds postgraduate degrees in agriculture).
Directed by Nicolas Vanier. In French with subtitles. 116 min. Fri 9/7-Thu 9/13, Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, 312-846-2800, siskelfilmcenter.org, $11.
