Preceded by short: En Rachâchant (Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet, France, 1982): Written by Duras based on her children's book, this film questions the importance of school, "because in school they teach me things I am ignorant of." Jonathan Rosenbaum writes, "It is like a judicious encounter of Dennis the Menace with Straub, Eraserhead with Huillet." Filmed by the incomparable Henri Alekan. (10 mins, In French with English subtitles, B&W, mm, From New Yorker) ------------------(The Children). A marvelous piece of absurdist cinema that is, on one level at least, Duras's most entertaining and accessible work, Les Enfants concerns a seven-year-old boy, Ernesto, who is portrayed by a forty-year-old man (Axel Bougousslavsky). In his child's wisdom, Ernesto decides to quit school, since knowledge can count for nothing in a meaningless world. His lament concerning Creation ("Everything was there and it wasn't worth it"), his refusal to learn "what I do not know" have shades of Woody Allen's bespectacled youth who stops studying because "the universe is expanding." But in Duras's universe a soulful mother (Tatiana Moukhine), although bemused, will never deny support to her precocious child, while the father (Daniel Gélin) is befuddled. Within the effectively stark framework which Duras has established throughout her oeuvre, rarely have the nuances of character been given such free play-nor the human condition been decried with such warm, sad humor.