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What happened to Julien elicits a passionate, unguarded and only slightly whimsical speech from a teacher named Richet (Jean-François Stevenin), who tells his students that children ought to have rights, that they can be scarred like Julien, even in a state of grace. The members of the class are baffled and politely bored by what their teacher has to say. Lovelessness has touched so few of them.
The teacher clearly speaks very much for Truffaut. The dark currents of childhood — the ones that run through books like A High Wind in Jamaica and Lord of the Flies — are not to be found here. Small Change is a celebration, and a joyous one.
Jay Cocks