The Class, based on the novel Entre Les Murs deserves it’s many accolades, including the recent Oscar Nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category. It’s a sort of unexpected triumph given the subject matter: a classroom full of Parisian teens and a well intentioned French teacher. Laurent Cantet, along with his co-screenwriter, author of the novel and star, François Bégaudau, has taken on another improbable and socially relevant topic and given it a narrative spin that makes it compelling and irrestistible.
François plays a version of himself, since the novel is based on his actual experiences teaching junior high school. Yet the film is not a documentary: it was carefully over the course of a school year. Every student in the film participated in a weekly “open workshop” where the Cantet worked with them on improvisational acting technique. The idea was to shape a narrative around particular events culled from the book (experience) but to really let the dialogue come directly from the students. So the students are not playing themselves, their characters are constructs, but constructs that are very much a part of their experience.
The students all come from the real Françoise Dolto Junior High in the 20th arrondissment of Paris which is on the outer edge of the city, although the film was not actually shot there. Like many of the most desirable cities, the non-affluent including recent immigrants and their families are relegated to the outskirts, a metaphor of course for where we place teenagers and others who may disturb our endless quest for comfort and pleasure. The “class” then becomes a microcosm of the larger society, multicultural, democratic yet hierarchical, even unjust. And although François has a less authoritarian approach, engaging in more back and forth, neo-Socratic method, he is refreshingly flawed unlike so many other products of this hackneyed genre from Goodbye Mr. Chips to Dead Poet’s Society.
And this is exactly what makes this film so incredibly compelling: the resistance to elevate adult over student or vice versa in terms of point of view, subject position and therefore our judgement. Shooting with three small HD cameras, one always on the teacher, one always on the students, and one to capture spontaneous moments we are invited to experience this social experiment from different angles. At the same time there is no illusion as to who is the position of power, and therefore, as adults ourselves, whose “side” we would tend to gravitate to. Yet the film allows the teenagers to be their inhabit their characters: to exhibit how they use language, lack of seriousness and other the pretenses to cover up their ever present insecurities and perception of their own powerlessness.
Cantet takes on subjects that are, outwardly, beyond the concept of commercial appeal in the strictest Hollywood sense. This is exactly why so many people miss films that are so satisfyingly worth seeing. He presents a unique perspective on social problems, finding and shaping new drama as he did in the outstanding Timeout, a tale of outsourcing; sex tourism with a twist in Heading South and class conflicts within one family in Human Resources. And he does it all without the least bit of polemicism: no shaking a fist or finger, or making you swallow the bitter pill of guilt.
I knew what I was in for with Cantent, yet when the film started I felt my resistance to the subject rise. “Ugh...a film about a bunch of surly teenagers,” I thought. Less than 5 seconds later had sucked me into watching this population of kids most of us don’t even want to think about: children of color, mostly from immigrant families. And he did it without glamorizing or sexualizing them...brilliant.
We are drawn to particular students like Khoumba, Wei, Esmerelda and Souleyman. We care about them as much as the teacher clearly does and by the end are left wondering about their futures. When the lights came up I clapped (and I very rarely do so in films) I was so moved by this story and these kids. Not many around me did and I’m not sure exactly why. In a film without a clear emotional guide: no lush, dramatic or even hip hop score, no clear or flawless hero and all in French no less, maybe people weren’t given what they were expecting. But this is a masterpiece -- do not miss the opportunity to challenge what you may think you know about Paris (it’s not all champagne and chocolate) about teaching and about teenagers.
The Class opens nationwide on January 30, 2009.
Directed by Laurent Cantet; written by Laurent Cantet, François Bégaudeau, and Robin Campillo, based on the novel “Entre Les Murs” by François Bégaudeau; produced by Carole Scotta, Caroline Benjo, Barbara Letellier, and Simon Arnal; edited by Robin Campillo and Stéphanie Léger.
With: François Bégaudeau (François), Franck Keïta (Souleymane), Rachel Régulier (Khoumba), Esmérelda Ouertani (Sandra), Wei Huang (Wei), and Jean-Michel Simonet (The Principal).
