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Cinema
Class Act
For the first time in 21 years, a French film has won the top prize at the Cannes Festival, unanimously awarded by a jury that included Natalie Portman and was chaired by Sean Penn.
‘Entre les Murs’, literally, ‘Between the Walls’, but given the English title of ‘The Class’, is the story of a year in the life of a junior high school in the 20th arrondissement, one of the toughest districts of Paris. Directed by Laurent Cantet, the film is extraordinarily realist, as one might expect from the origins of the cast.
It is based on a novel by François Bégaudeau, who taught in such a school for several years and plays himself, surrounded by 24 real school children playing… real school children. These 13 and 14-year-olds, acting but not acting, speaking lines mostly written by themselves, are wonderfully precocious and convincing, so much so that the audience becomes completely engrossed in their little world.
From the first moment, Bégaudeau is made aware that, like the children themselves, he will be going through a series of challenges and opportunities. In the staff common room, he is briefed by a friendly colleague, looking at the list of names, on what to expect from those in his class: “Nice ... Nice ... Not nice ... Nice ... Oh, watch out for her, she’s trouble.”
Cantet and Bégaudeau delightfully capture the supreme tedium of explaining the progress, or lack of it, of the pupils to their parents on PTA night, and the tension of a disciplinary hearing when things get out of hand. But most of the scenes are set in the classroom itself, where Bégaudeau’s excessive frankness takes his charges by surprise until they find a way of disconcerting him, and putting his equilibrium to the test, by subtly challenging his teaching methods. This exquisite focus on a microcosm of society that reflects what must be going on all over France seems destined to win further awards.
From our June 2008 e-newsletter
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