Christophe Barratier looked as if he heard something shocking, although
all I asked was if he has any involvement with opera.  "What a coincidence,"
he said, pointing at his cell phone on our table in the SF/MoMA cafe.
"I hadn't, until 10 minutes ago.  That's when I got a call from Spain,
asking me to direct Granados' `Goyescas'." (Data for a future biography:
the date is Nov.  11, Barratier coming through San Francisco on a press
tour; also participating, along with the SF Boys Chorus, in an advance
screening of his new film.)

The first-time opera-director-to-be has a hyperactive cell phone; he is
H-O-T.  That's because of his "Les Choristes" - "The Chorists," correctly,
in British distribution, "The Chorus," according to Miramax, which is
releasing it in the US in January.

Barratier, 40, is writer, director, co-composer for this brilliant,
affecting movie about a French boarding school from hell where a frustrated
composer/good-hearted teacher brings healing, life-changing music to the
brutalized youngsters.  Please note: this is *not* a kind of "Monsieur
Holland's Opus" feel-good pap; "Les Choristes" is gritty, involving, and
true.  Oh, and there is one more item Barratier can claim on the movie
credits (but he doesn't): he is the model for a one of the boys, the
main character.

With his parents divorced when he was a year old, Barratier ended up
in a boarding school himself ("it wasn't quite as bad as in the movie"),
was never visited by his father (as one of the other boys in the film),
only occasionally by his single mother.  As in the film, "music changed
my life," he says, "modified my not very good behavior, made me feel
less lonely."

Character and author, both ended up in the Paris Conservatory, but instead
of the movie's choir-boy-to-conductor, Barratier himself went from singer
to classical guitarist...  until, at age 25, he discovered that making
a living with that instrument is not entirely feasible (although he found
it "the right thing to attract women").

Being the nephew of Jacques Perrin, one of Europe's top film stars (who
appears in the "Les Choristes"), Barratier drifted into the movie industry,
quickly progressing to a couple of extraordinary accomplishments.  As
producer of logistically impossible works, he is the man who created
"Winged Migration" and "Himalaya," two of the most striking nature films
in recent years.

There was modest success as the result, but nothing like "Les Choristes."
Even today, eight months after that film opened in France and at various
festivals, Barratier appears unbelieving of the figures: an audience of
9 million so far in France alone, and a million and a half CDs of the
soundtrack sold.  "Unexpected," he says.  "Like an earthquake." The film
is France's entry for the next Academy Awards.

Taking off for Los Angeles (part of a six-month publicity tour Miramax
signed him up for, leaving him unable to work on his next project),
Barratier had little time to talk about the unusual musical programming
for "Les Choristes." Here's a film about a boys chorus with a single
classical composition (by Rameau), three by Barratier himself, and the
rest by Bruno Coulais, a busy composer for French television and responsible
for the captivating soundtrack of "Winged Migration." It's simple,
haunting music, not at all what you'd expect, but perfectly suited for
the situation, making the audience believe that it was composed by the
well-meaning teacher for the boys.

Janos Gereben
www.sfcv.org
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