Homage to teacher impressive

Press, 23 June 1986, Page 4

Homage to teacher impressive

M Cinema’

hans petrovic

SYLVIA Directed by Michael Firth Screenplay by Michele Quill, F. Fairfax and Michael Firth Sylvia Ashton-Warner was a remarkable woman in the sense that she is one of a handful of New Zealand women who have left their mark on various levels of society, with her contribution as author-artist-educator. “Sylvia” (Academy) is also a remarkable New Zealand film in that it gives a low-key, unpretentious presentation of a seemingly minor subject, yet does it with the polish usually attributed to more experienced overseas film industries. Sylvia has built up almost a legend in this country through her books, and this film is based on two of the bet-ter-known: “Teacher” and “I Passed This Way.” Michael Firth pulls off an astute trick by starting the film with an actual interview with a very old Sylvia Ashton-Warner — plastered with powder and taken about 10 years before her death — in which she discusses “the artist as a monster,” and also refers to her nervous breakdown as something that all the “best people” have. . The film then switches to a bus taking a much younger, and very handsome Sylvia (Eleanor David, of “Comfort and Joy”) to a bush town where she and her husband are to teach at a predominantly Maori school. What she assumes to be a group of very young children turns out to be more of a remedial class for those who have not yet learnt to read. The film neatly shows her frustration with this group of seemingly hopeless children until she realises that their inability to read is basically due to lack of motivation. One of “Sylvia’s” most exciting moments is when she gives each child a word of their own, based on their individual experience — canoe, knife, ghost — and the surprising rapidity with which they learn to identify with it. To teach the children the “A.8.C.,” Sylvia turns to the piano, and it is the beautiful score of Leonard Rosenman which helps tie together this film of loosely-related incidents. “Sylvia” telescopes into one teaching year her experience of about seven years. It bundles into single characters, such as the school inspectors, a large number of individuals. If anything “Sylvia” takes too much for granted, assuming that the viewer has some background knowledge of the subject. The film ends with her seemingly having lost her fight with the Education Department in seeking recognition for her innovative techniques. What happened afterwards is history, but not explained here. Music, painting and writing were Sylvia’s cherished activities. She hated school, and the thought of being a teacher was anathema. In “I Passed This Way,” her autobiography, she

confesses “the last thing in God’s heaven or earth I wanted to become was a teacher. If I had one hate, it was the inside of a schoolroom.” But the reality of the late 1920 s was that teaching was one of the few careers available to women. She went to Auckland Teachers Training College, graduating in 1931. It was during these years as an “infant mistress” that Sylvia developed her revolutionary method of "organic teaching,” which she later expounded in her book, “Teacher.” This seminal book has sold more than 500,000 copies in the United States and Canada alone, and also was the basis of an earlier film with Shirley MacLaine, Jack Hawkins and Lawrence Harvey. It was also during these years that Sylvia came to reject the official “Janet and John” readers (Janet being replaced by Moana), creating her own reading books designed to have a relevance to and promote literacy in Maori pupils. Her hopes of having her reading books officially adopted and published did not succeed. She encountered enormous resistance to her unorthodox ideas by what she termed “PSBMEH — the Permanent Solid Block of Male Educational Hostility.” All of the above information is not given in the film, yet “Sylvia” stands on its own as a concise exposition on everything from love, caring, even teaching techniques. Michael Firth, as producer, director and screenwriter, must be commended for making one of the best yet New Zealand films. Possibly part of the trick was getting English actors for the three leading roles. They certainly did not have that peculiar self-conscious manner of speech which most New Zealanders still affect. In the company of these thorough professionals (Eleanor David as Sylvia, Tom Wilkinson as the saintly husband, Nigel Terry as the romantically inclined school inspector), the only Kiwi in a leading role, Mary Regan, also gives a natural, vibrant performance. (Regan also appeared in Firth’s “Heart of the Stag.”) The Maori schoolchildren are also a joy to watch. Firth manages to produce an almost idyllic, yet believable background, with children coming to school by canoe, and picnics in the rain; yet he maintains a balance with such scenes as the racial tension in the local pub. "Sylvia” is a difficult film to categorise, but it certainly shows Michael Firth as one of the most competent, professional film-makers that this country has yet produced.