Maria Montessori: Film »Maria Montessori«: Manless on a mission

No, she doesn’t want to get married. When a woman gets married, she loses her freedom. Maria Montessori (1870–1952) would follow this insight throughout her life.

Her child, who is three years old, is being raised in the country by a foster mother, because an unmarried mother was unthinkable in Catholic Italy around 1900. The child’s father wants to marry her, then they could bring the son with them, but Montessori refuses. Although she suffers from the separation from her son, she remains tough. Because she wants to be successful professionally and play a role in the world of men. And that has its price.

Maria Montessori was one of the first women to study medicine in Italy. Only after she had taken a science subject for two years was she allowed to start. Its mission is the broad reform of psychiatry and schools. In this she is close to the life reform movement at the turn of the century, which is not only about natural life, the harmony of body and mind, but also about the inherent rights of childhood. Away with the drill schools, in which the will of children was first broken in order to produce subjects for the state! An approach similar to Montessori’s ideas can also be found at this time in Ellen Key’s epochal work “The Century of the Child” or in Hermann Hesse’s “Under the Wheel”.

The feature film by Léa Todorov with a strong Jasmine Trinca as Maria Montessori is inevitably based on a mixture of documentary narrative and artistic fiction. A monument to the “world-famous icon” is to be erected here. Criticism is not intended. That’s how it is with the great reformers, including the female ones, in history. There are supporters and opponents alike – but there is rarely differentiation. Anyone who has never experienced a debate about competing Waldorf and Montessori schools has no idea of ​​the militancy that “soft” pedagogy is capable of.

But let’s stick with the feature film plot. The Parisian demimonde Lili d’Alengy (Leïla Bekhti) opens the door one day. A child is pushed in, maybe five years old. According to the family representative, this belongs to her and from now on she should take care of it herself. The girl is mentally handicapped, an “imbecile,” an “idiot” who is considered a disgrace to the family. The little one has not received any attention so far and has been hidden. That’s why she now stands there as expressionless as a log, completely neglected. The mother’s first reaction is: just go far away with that one, such an “idiot” is bad for business. She brings Tina, that’s the girl’s name, to Rome – and that’s where she meets Maria Montessori. This is successful with its special teaching methods, which are based on human attention and a series of strange mathematical-theological views. It can awaken undreamt-of intellectual potential in previously neglected or disabled children.

The encounter between the two women, one could also speak of a collision, carries the film over long stretches and is definitely worth seeing. Eventually something like friendship develops between them. There are two people who fear nothing more than everyday life in a bourgeois marriage, especially within the Catholic tradition. You have to be rich in order to remain independent, says the Parisian demimonde. And she advises Maria Montessori to energetically conquer a position of her own from which no man can drive her away.

Maria Montessori, who misses her son, has no choice but to make a deal: the biological father finally recognizes the child before he marries another woman. This maintains appearances. But as a mother, she is no longer allowed to have contact with him. When Mario was fifteen, he was allowed to come to her as her “nephew” – only when he turned forty did Maria Montessori admit to being his mother. She can hardly be blamed for the long hesitation, as the circumstances forced her to do so.

As a well-built and impressively filmed biopic (camera: Sébastien Goepfert), the film conveys the image of a strong-willed woman inspired by her mission. On the one hand, she relies on affection and love for her children, but on the other hand, she absolutely does not want to marry the father of her son, whom she loves. Her reasoning: “Can one entrust one’s fate to such an unstable feeling as love?” The contradictions in her life and her teachings are numerous.

And not all of them are told in the film: There are now numerous studies that show that Maria Montessori adhered to a crude racial theory and was supported by the dictator Mussolini from the mid-1920s. Is hiding this legitimate? Certainly not, and it doesn’t add to the credibility of the film.

But it is also true that Montessori education was banned at the end of the 1930s, both in fascist Italy and in Nazi Germany. The autonomy impulse that came from this was too strong. The idea of ​​peace is just as influential. The demimonde and the teacher also agree on this. The former receives flowers from an officer. “A general?” asks Maria Montessori. “No, a lieutenant colonel,” she gets the answer. He still needs a war to become a general. The zeitgeist of militarization at the time is pointed out so harshly here.

What do you do with such a contradictory legacy like that of Maria Montessori? Unfortunately, director Léa Todorov doesn’t ask this question. Your film is a big pro; the at least equally big con is kept quiet. It would have been more truthful and more appropriate to the complicated history to show both merits and a failure that grew out of dangerous errors. But it shouldn’t be about accusations, but about understanding – and continued correction.

»Maria Montessori«, France/Italy 2023. Director: Léa Todorov; Book: Julie Dupeux-Harlé. With: Jasmine Trinca, Leïla Bekhti, Raffaele Esposito, Rafaelle Sonneville-Caby. 100 mins. Now in the cinema.