The Chorus 2004 Fond de lEtang is a boarding school for troubled boys located in the French countryside In the mid twentieth century, it is run by the principal M Rachin, an egotistical disciplinarian whose official unofficial mantra for the school is action reaction, meaning that there will be severe consequences for any boy out of line This approach does not seem to be working as the boys as a collective are an unruly bunch In turn, the teachers dont teach, but are always watching out for the next subversive act from the boys January 15, 1949 marks the arrival to the school of the new supervisor, M Clement Mathieu, a middle aged man who is grasping at finding his place in life after a series of failed endeavors Although he does find the boys an unruly lot, Mathieu does not believe in the action reaction policy, and as such, butts heads with Rachin while secretly undermining the policy Slowly, Mathieus approach of trying to match the discipline to the crime does have a positive effect on a handful of students With the reluctant approval of Rachin, Mathieu begins a grander experiment of trying to transform the overall atmosphere within the school, core within the experiment being to start a choir among his students This move is a difficult one for him as a failed musician, as well as for the initially reluctant students During this process, Mathieu focuses on two different students for two different reasons Pepinot, a younger boy, seems to lack guidance and focus, and who always says he is waiting for Saturday when his father will pick him up, he who never does And Pierre Morhange, an older student, is the anachronism introverted, but prone to outbursts of individual subversiveness the devil with the face of an angel as the other teachers describe him Behind the reason for his subversiveness, which Mathieu slowly learns, Morhange hides a love of music and a true talent in it Beyond overcoming the obvious obstacles of Rachin and the students skepticism and Rachins egotism, Mathieu has another challenge in newly arrived Pascal Mondain, a truly troubled older boy with pathological tendencies whose presence alone may wreak havoc throughout the school, and not just with Mathieus project Over fifty years later, Morhange and Pepinot, who have not seen each other since that time and who did not spend that much time together while at school, are reading through Mathieus memoirs from his time at the school, which unmasks the reason why the two are privy to the memoir and the effect he had on their lives