The Class

In Laurent Cantet’s creation of The Class, he organised regular classroom meetings of the actors playing the students in order that they would gradually immerse themselves in the roles. This was not so much an embrace of method acting but it did have the result of plenty of improvisation and a very naturalistic feel to the class dynamic which is the centre-point of the film.

In this sense, the somewhat gritty realism that this helps to create is an echo of documentary cinema and in particular, as admitted by the film-makers, the wonderful 2002 documentary, Être et avoir, which follows life in a provincial French primary school under the tutorship of a single teacher. The themes, though obviously less stark, remain on the same lines. Disputes between pupils, the ‘penny dropping’ moment when an idea clicks with a kid and perhaps most significantly the uncontrollable outside world’s influence on the classroom, beyond the teacher’s control.

The Class’s subjects are secondary school pupils aged 13-15 as opposed to children but like Être et avoir these are children of mixed abilities and mixed ethnicities. The teacher in this case, François Marin, (François Bégaudeau, who penned the semi-autobiographical novel on which the film is based) attempts to peddle the ins and outs of the French language to his students.

It is as much a tribute to the French school system as it is a criticism with the sheer powerlessness of the teacher brought to the fore and a valid concern that the modern education frequently leaves pupils behind who can’t integrate into the environment but with a proviso that this structure can work under the right circumstances. This serious sounding ideology should not be taking as a indication that the film is a depressing watch, the scenes of the lessons which provide the film’s platform are often filled with laughs which is often not the immediate reaction when confronted with dialogue discussing the construction of verb conjugation.

The film manages to avoid educational clichés typified in motion pictures of an urban resistant class suddenly embracing Shakespeare or a subdued school suddenly rocked by a stabbing or a shooting and its moment of narrative shift comes when an off-the-cuff remark by Marin sparks of a chain of events which have significant consequences for one of the pupils. However the film never takes the opportunity to do anything over the top and the sense of inevitability it portrays as the events take their course are food for thought for anyone with a view on school approaches to discipline.

Another thing that distinguishes itself from Être et avoir is to keep the entire location of the film within the school, a tie-in with its original French title; Entre les murs (Between the walls). The frustrations of only being able to witness student activity in the educational surroundings translate mean insights into the students' home lives give an intangible sense of something inaccessible, both for the audience and for Marin.

The slow pace of the film may frustrate some cinema goers but this is no doubt a thought-provoking piece of work with excellent performances from young actors and nuanced free-flowing dialogue. This is a more traditionalist work than has won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in recent years but that is certainly not a criticism, indeed it is its admirable nod to naturalistic traditions that make this an engaging and thoughtful piece.