The Class (Entre Les Murs) [Blu-ray] [Import]

I knew absolutely nothing about this film - other than it was in French and won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. I wanted to approach it with no pre-conceptions. After watching the 2 hour, 10-minute film on DVD I then read the background. I knew it was not a documentary but I wasn't aware that the teacher was the author of the original book upon which the film was based, and that he also wrote the screenplay. The students seemed to be too realistic to be professional actors. (And they aren't; they are actual students at the school.). I stuck with the film, waiting for a solution or happy ending (like Mr. Holland's Opus" or "Stand and Deliver") but it never came. At first I was disappointed , but then - after thinking about it - I realized that this is "real life" (it was based on an actual class) and it was just as much an experiment in filmmaking (using the teacher/author and the student/actors) as an entertainment film.

I won't go in to the details of the film - another reviewer, Chris Pandolfi, has done that already - but will comment on the DVD version, which I do recommend. First off, the subtitles are clear and probably the largest font I've seen in a while and are in the black bar below the screen (except, oddly at one point where a few sentences appear ABOVE the picture) , making them easy to read. The DVD also allows you to scan back to a section you may have missed. The bonus features include a 40-minute "making of" featurette and two brief scenes with commentary by the director and star/author. All of these are in French with subtitles. The "Making of" adds to appreciating the film even more, but watch it AFTER you have seen the film; not before.

If you are an educator, you will find this film food for thought. If you are a parent of high school aged students you will find this "real", even though it takes place in a multi-cultural school in France.

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"

"The Class" is about a dedicated teacher, Francois Marin (played by Francois Begaudeau), in an inner city Parisian middle school. Lead actor Begaudeau has an interesting background; he was in a punk rock band and was a writer before becoming a teacher. He turned his experiences teaching into a book, "Entre Les Murs" (Between these Walls), which was then loosely adapted into "The Class." In the film, we follow Francois as he teaches a class of 25 students during the school year. The movie made news when it became the first French film to win the coveted Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in over 20 years.

Francois' teaching style is unusual, at least for American audiences; he encourages his students to ask questions, even if it takes them off the main topic. So a lesson on subjugating French verbs can quickly lead to a discussion of slang and a variety of topics - some quite unexpected. Whether his style is effective is questionable. Plus, Francois is often just barely in control of his class, although he seems more in control than some of the other teachers. However, regardless of effectiveness, his style does make for a fascinating movie. Francois' strives to make his lessons applicable to the lives' of his students in his highly multi-cultural mostly lower income class. He struggles to understand his students and their diverse backgrounds as he attempts to teach them. How can he teach French to a bunch of students who openly say that they aren't French? That is part of Francois' dilemma.

The plot of "The Class" is nothing earth-shattering - just typical things one could observe in any classroom. What sells the movie is its tremendous realism. Begaudeau is extraordinary as the lead teacher; he's refreshingly human. He isn't portrayed as a hero who rescues his students and inspires them; this isn't "Lean on Me" or "Stand and Deliver." As good as Begaudeau is, the movie is stolen by the nonprofessional young actors. I liked that the teens had problems but weren't presented as thugs - this isn't "The Asphalt Jungle." These teens are more complicated than that. The young actors participated in months of workshops with Begaudeau and director Laurent Cantet, during which the specific situations that occur in the movie were improved. Thus, the actors themselves contributed to the script, which helps explain the degree of realism. The movie feels like a documentary, and we feel like voyeurs peeking into their space - between their walls. Whether you like the way that Francois teaches of not and whether you like these kids or not, "The Class" is an enlightening, entertaining film.

It is hard for me to imagine a story so heavily anchored in the mundane that kept me so heavily anchored to my seat. I've watched this film four times so far, and have yet to grow bored of it. The teacher, who has a predetermined curriculum to impart, is constantly being derailed by the dialectic that these students seem to prefer much more. In so doing, they seem to arrive at a middle ground between what society deems to be important for these kids to learn, and what actually IS relevant to them in their lives and experiences, not unlike a dialogue between interlocutors and Socrates, to whom they later even pay tribute with a mention of Plato's 'Republic'. Along the way, you observe the blindness and shortcomings of institutions as well as the obstinate perpetuity of the disenfranchised, and plenty of snobbery and vacuity from all quarters. Between the need for social harmony and social progress, between the theoretical and the practical, and between aspirations and reality, you are educated at the crossroads where those notions all intersect "between the walls" of 'The Class'.