CANNES (Hollywood Reporter) - Laurent Cantet takes a raw
look at a school year through the eyes of a single teacher in
"The Class," which won the coveted Palme d'Or at the Cannes
Film Festival on Sunday.
The film -- whose French title "Entre les Murs" or "Between
the Walls" accurately captures the self-imposed quarantine --
is based on a novel by Francois Begaudeau, written from his own
experiences as a teacher. He also contributes to the screenplay
and plays the key role of a language teacher, so we can be
pretty certain the film stays true its subject.
While Begaudeau's teacher struggles to get his young
charges to focus on French verbs, they question his use of
"white" names in examples, and whether the required reading has
any relevance to their lives.
Many students come from abroad; some have parents who are
undocumented immigrants. They kid a lot, some of it
good-natured but much of it comes closer to mockery. Their
intolerance stems from attitudes about how other students look
and behave, where they are from and how they speak.
As the year goes by, the students and Begaudeau's fellow
teachers come into sharper focus. One student from Mali (played
by Franck Keita) increasingly upsets the class with his
attitude and anger. Like many, he isn't clear what school can
offer him. He is sullen and retreats into rage, possibly to
disguise his own fear of failure. Then the teacher himself
makes a fateful miscalculation.
What works so well here is that none of the drama feels the
least bit imposed. It evolves naturally from class assignments,
the teacher's own free-form style and the distinctly individual
personalities of these young people thrown together by chance.
While it may lack the narrative drive of films from the past
such as "Blackboard Jungle," it also contains nothing contrived
or gimmicky. This is probably one of the most realistic high
school movies ever made.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
