ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Enjoy student art Art Made Easy, high school creations on display Works by students in Charlotte Severin’s Art Made Easy classes will be on display next week at the Senior Center, 5353 Sunol Blvd., with a reception from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Monday. Severin has been teaching watercolor classes for almost two decades through the city, and this is the 18th annual Celebrating Art Made Easy student exhibit. The exhibit includes plein air paintings, which is work done on location, as well as floral, still life and portraits. There are also textural works using rice paper collage. A few of the paintings may be available for purchase by contacting the artist, and original watercolors paintings by Severin will also be on display.
In addition to the opening reception, the exhibit will be open 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday through noon, Friday, May 4. Meanwhile an exhibit of a select group of art students from Amador Valley and Foothill high schools is on display at the Harrington Gallery at the Firehouse Arts Center, 4444 Railroad Ave., Pleasanton, juried by art teachers Michael Doyle, Trish Fenton, Caroline Fields and Nancy Scotto. In addition, the exhibit includes a collection of works by recent alumni who are currently pursuing their college degrees. The art will be on display through May 5. An artists’ reception was held April 20. N
“A Burst of Color,” watercolor by Ane Marie Rodriguez
“Deer” by Elora Kelsh, Foothill High
“Snowy Egrets,” watercolor by Claudia Curran
Student art on display at the Firehouse Arts Center
GUITARIST Continued from Page 20
from there.” While Johnson and the Days have performed a handful of times since then, the bulk of their time has been spent putting the album together. Johnson said a tour to promote the album will follow its release. “We’re planning on going probably within Switzerland and then probably Germany. Basically you have to see where your music is popping up,” he said. “I would love actually to come home and do a show in Pleasanton. We actually may be going to New York as well, but we’re going to be mainly in Europe.” Johnson said his life as a professional musician came as a surprise to his friends. “None of my friends back home know,” he said. “When it came out on Facebook, it was this whole big thing, like, ‘I didn’t know you could play.’ It was this whole big secret.” Johnson’s career path also shocked his family in Pleasanton, who were mostly worried for him. “My parents in the beginning, when I first started, they were a little uneasy about the whole thing, they were worried that it’s a pretty tough business,” he said. “As they saw thing progressing, they saw that I was serious. It was one of the first thing they saw that I was good at.” He said his younger sister, like Braxton, is one of his biggest fans. Trying to describe his music is a difficult task for Johnson. “Some people say it reminds them of a nice summer day. They like to sit back and see where the music takes them,” he said. “You’ll understand what I’m going through in my life if you listen to my album.” It seems that the language barrier is not much of a barrier in Zurich, which Johnson described as a “very English-speaking city.” “All the music they listen to here comes from the U.S. or the U.K.,” he said, adding, “Even non speakers enjoy it.” N
NOW SHOWING
“Defective Barbie” by Sarah Im, Amador Valley High
REVIEWS OF NEW MOVIES
BY PETER CANAVESE Monsieur Lazhar
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Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material, a disturbing image and brief language. 1 hour, 34 minutes.
School can be cruel. It’s a message on display not only in the recent headline-grabbing documentary “Bully,” but also in the humble French-Canadian drama “Monsieur Lazhar.” Based on Evelyne de la Cheneliere’s one-man play “Bashir Lazhar,” Philippe Falardeau’s feature wasn’t so humble as to miss scoring an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. But it is a sensitive and fairly subtle work, with the deceptive simplicity of a well-honed short story. “Monsieur Lazhar” takes an interest in both its titular hero, an Algerian immigrant who comes to teach a sixth-grade class, and his emotionally troubled students. In the film’s first scene, two students discover their teacher’s body hanging in their classroom. The shockwaves of that suicide continue to lap against the students as the life of the school goes on, though the hapless administration does only the minimum (assigning a single counselor) to address the issue. Matters look up when Mr. Lazhar (Mohamed Said Fellag) walks into the school and volunteers his services, explaining he taught in Algiers for 19 years. He turns out to be just what the students need, and perhaps the job is just what he needs, the dual promise reflected in his name: Bashir (“bearer of good news”) Lazhar (“lucky”).
Secrets surface over the course of the film, ones held by the students and their teacher. Even as he recognizes the students need help to process their grief, he suffers in silence in his own grief process, related to his dating and immigrant statuses. The film, though, isn’t all gloom and doom; the classroom has the energetic strength in numbers of children, and Falardeau allows some comic touches from the kids and Fellag, a comedian by trade. As depicted by the film, the cruelties inherent in the educational system include the expected results of familiar restraints (budget, stressed resources and the pressures of oversight) and inflexible school bureaucracy. There’s also the unrefined social interaction of students just learning to understand their feelings, and hurting their peers in the process. And, of course, there’s the bittersweet role of great teachers, who pass out of students’ lives as easily as they arrive, after kindling an emotional bond. Always hanging over the film is the horrible mystery of suicide, which disproportionately affects its young witnesses. Falardeau gently depicts the searching lovehate relationship between those witnesses: class clown Simon (Emilien Neron), given to aggressive acting out, and Alice (Sophie Nelisse), who quickly takes a shine to the school’s sole male classroom instructor. The keen leading performances never hit a false note, but Neron gets the showpiece when he at last experiences an emotional breakthrough about his late teacher. “Monsieur Lazhar” at times recalls more striking teacher movies, like “The Class” and “Dead Poets Society,” but it’s a small gem of its own, meeting its kids on their level and celebrating a teacher who cares about their present and future. N Pleasanton WeeklyÊUÊApril 27, 2012ÊU Page 21