Films pour enfants

Sequence on the theme of disappearance

English6-11 years old

Educational activity around the short film Rain and Fish

Expected end of activities

Identify and express your emotions and feelings by regulating them.

Be able to listen and empathize.

Rain and Fish

Rain and Fish © Risa Kimpara / Tokyo University of the Arts

TitleRain and Fish

ThemeImagination

Genre & keywordsContemplative, rain, waiting, fish, imaginary

Age (for film)3-11 years

Duration04 min 47 s

DirectorRisa Kimpara

MusicYusaku Masuda

ProductionTokyo University of the Arts (Japan, 2010)

Educational activities

Participate in an oral exchange on a painful subject while respecting others and the rules of communication.

This video shows us a little boy waiting near a bus stop. While he waits he gets lost in his thoughts. We understand that he is thinking of himself as a child because we see the character shrink at the start of the story. It seems to be a mixture of memories and daydreams. We see him with his mother. It seems like he misses her. He seems nostalgic for this time when he was with her. She is absent from his life, it is his dad he was waiting for and who gets off the bus at the end of the video.

This video can be interpreted in different ways: the parents are separated or the mother is sick or dead, in any case she is absent. It is therefore an opportunity to deal with delicate subjects in class such as separation, illness or death. The video will be the starting point of the sequence and an important point of support. Don't hesitate to watch it again several times, especially certain key passages like the one where the child shrinks, the moments with his mother, when he finds his dad at the end.

After deciphering the video, the discussion can gradually move towards the chosen subject. Some students may have been confronted with the death of an animal, a loved one... This will be the time to let them express themselves if they wish, to share their emotions, to discuss this painful theme while taking care to ensure that the students listen to each other with respect.

Extensions

  • Continue on the same theme with children’s literature. Losing a grandparent, a close family member, a pet... Youth Albums on SensCritique...
  • Conduct research on mortuary customs around the world and through time and present them in the form of presentations.
  • Reading and learning poetry about disappearance: “Tomorrow, at dawn…” (1856) in which Victor Hugo speaks of Léopoldine Hugo, his missing daughter, who died following drowning. List of poems on Poetica...
  • Express yourself through drawing, how can you draw death, mourning...
  • Express yourself through writing: write a text, a poem, tell the story of the little boy in the video, imagine his story, imagine what he thinks and feels...
  • Sequence on living beings in science: a living being is born, grows, ages and dies.
  • Make the historical connection with the world wars.
  • Make the link in EMC with public holidays: July 14 storming of the Bastille, November 11 armistice 1918, May 8 Victory Day. We pay tribute to the dead who fell for France. Talk about the commemoration ceremonies that often take place in front of war memorials.
  • History/visual arts sequence on the Arc de Triomphe, built by Napoleon to pay tribute to soldiers.

Activity sheet written by: Valérie du blog Val 10. Discover the Val 10 blog...

Léopoldine Hugo, Auguste de Châtillon, 1835. CC0