Die Klasse

Greetings again from the darkness. Not a film in the traditional sense and not a documentary by true definition, it mixes the two into an absorbing, addictive 128 minutes.

Over the years, I have often questioned the educational system and why both teachers and students are so frustrated. Here we get an inside look at both sides and it still leaves me wondering "why?". Why do otherwise intelligent people commit to becoming teachers? Why do we insist on teaching formats that are miserable for both teacher and student? Why do so many parents blame the school and so few take an active, supportive role? This is the story of Francois Begaudeau, who also wrote the book upon which director Laurent Cantet's film is based.

Begaudeau is a junior high teacher in a working class, multi-ethnic Paris school where the teachers have resigned themselves to the fact that most of the students just don't care to learn. We get an incredible amount of classroom time showing how the melting pot of cultures has so much to offer, yet seems impossible to tap into.

Also fascinating are the teacher meetings and discussions that occur away from the students. We see no joy in these teachers and most seem just beaten down. The film offers no solutions, it strictly acts as a peek inside the institution.

While we are left to our own accord to pick sides or dream of alternatives, I continue to ask the same "why" questions over and over.

Best movie I've seen since No Country For Old Men. And you won't hear these two titles mentioned together too often.

The greatest accomplishment was in re-creating, in naturalistic documentary style, well....a classroom. And although it's almost half a century since I participated in such an environment, it seems not an awful lot has changed (well, apart from the total disrespect shown by many of the children towards their mentor). They were all there, mouthy, loud, quiet, bright, stupid. And real, or so it appeared.

Dead Poets Society it ain't. Remarkably free from schmaltz, the film traces a reasonably undramatic class year, with its group dynamics, teacher cock ups, mutinies - pupils that is - with a very small sprinkling of what is being taught academically. The result should have been fairly prosaic and I suppose it was, but I was transfixed by the skill of the players the art of the director and the total ordinariness of the people being so brilliantly portrayed. A terrific achievement by all.

Can't see the forest for the trees! It's very rare, indeed, when I'm at a staggering loss for words. Words are my business...having owned and directed my own language schools for 35 years. But when I sat down to write this, immediately after viewing "The Class", my unmitigated ire and unbridled outrage only produced that most dreaded of conditions, anathema to all reviewers: Writer's Block!

Several hours later, my blood having assuaged itself from boiling to simmer, I find myself, once again, anxious to share my impressions of this undeniably unique French film with you.

"Class" refuses to be pigeon-holed. Perhaps a Documentary-Drama fusion, but not really a Docudrama, either. More akin to reality TV,... only better! "Class" will certainly affect different people in strikingly different ways!

How do middle-school teachers around the world maintain their grip on sanity and reality? I felt myself sliding down the slippery slope from just observing these French* kids flaunt their world-class insolence! But whatever your reaction to them, chances are "Class" will get to you just like running your fingernails along a blackboard!

Did you notice the asterisk on French* Kids? Surprisingly, this inner-city French classroom was a veritable rainbow coalition: Africans, Caribbean Franco-Africans, Arabs, Eastern Europeans, a couple Hispanics and Chinese. Oh yes, and even some Gauls, born and raised! My spoken French is decrepit, but my ear is still fairly well-tuned and a myriad of different accents were very easy to discern, a few of them rendered somewhat haltingly.!

Encountering harmony and a real-time teaching classroom dynamic under these conditions pose a daunting challenge, to say the least. The problem resides in that 9th graders around the world are keenly aware of who REALLY is in control in the classroom.... They are!

More often than not, their classroom comportment is an unabated and blatant non-stop provocation of whoever is teaching them. But God forbid should that teacher lapse into a single moment of normal human reaction to such constant torment! The unspoken undercurrent that is dissolving the foundations of education around the world is only too self-evident in this "Class". Just a few accusatory words from any student could instantly vaporize the career of any teacher!

Francois, the real-life teacher exhibiting patience that would make Job look bi-polar in comparison, manages to defy expectation and give us an unprecedented surprise ending; apparently there IS something that most students still fear! Recommended to all teachers and anyone interested in the teaching process! 9*********

ENJOY! / DISFRUTELA!

I watched another French film in a row (after ""Il y a Longtemps que Je T'aime"). "Entre Le Murs" (known in English as "the Class") is the French bet for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, and also the first French film to win the Palm D'Or of the Cannes Film Festival in 20 years. It is simply begging to be seen, so I did, despite knowing nothing about its subject matter.

"The Class" turns out to be a documentary-like movie about the tense interaction between teacher and students in a French multiracial high school. In particular, the film follows French grammar teacher Francois Marin who would like to think of himself as a progressive teacher who employs the interactive and self-discovery classroom technique, rather than by traditional lecture style.

However, most of his students are disturbingly belligerent, frank and disrespectful. The main conflict is with a particularly insolent Mali boy named Souleymane who has violent outbursts in class. But there are other students too from Tunisia, Morocco, China, the Caribbean, etc.. all of whom with their own personality and issues which the teacher has to deal with.

Everything in this film is very realistic indeed. It becomes even more personal after knowing that the lead actor who played Mr. Marin is Francois Begaudeau, who actually wrote the semi-autobiographical book about his experiences as a teacher, as well as adapted his own book for this film's screenplay. This is another instance when I am sure a lot of the richness of the language interplay will be lost in the subtitled translations.

A lot of people will find this film boring because of the two hour length, the single setting within the school, and no additional personal side stories about the teachers and students. But with my recent foray into the theory of Education in Graduate School, this film is quite an eye-opener about how different the school situation is these days. Definitely, this film has no Hollywood story arc and uplifting ending. It just tells the situation as it is. And that is precisely where its strength is.

I will start with saying that the subtitles made it difficult to understand the specifics of their dialogue. But notwithstanding, Entre Les Murs really feels like I've spent a year in the school with these students. We see the power structure between teachers, admin, and students. We see the problems and challenges that the system has. We also, more importantly, see the interpersonal relationships between the teachers and the students.

This movie doesn't sentimentalize or sugar-coat the learning experience. Lean On Me, this is not. This vision is as stark and cold as the fluorescent light bulbs above the class. The warmth, however brief, is provided by the students and their teachers.

I enjoyed the realistic acting. I never for once thought that I was anywhere else except for a real classroom. I enjoyed the characters, though I wish that I would be able to get in their heads more and see their motivation.

What I liked the most is that we saw an unbiased, holistic viewpoint of the school year. Some students learned a lot, some learned nothing, and life moves on like a soccer match in the school halls.