Entre les Murs (The Class) – too real?

It’s movie season (for me, at least – almost two weeks of break and I’m not going out of town). First up? A new, French teacher movie: The Class.

The film starts with a few people in cars and on trains – teachers on their way to the first day of school. It’s a tough middle school in Paris. The new and old teachers introduce themselves, all chitchat, try to trade classes, ask about what books to use, look at each other’s class lists. And we meet François Marin, who teaches French to a class of roughly 8th or 9th graders. And for the rest of the film we stay in school, between the walls (the French title), and with M. Marin.

The class is mostly immigrants and children of immigrants: from Mali, from Morocco, from China, from the Carribean (probably from other places, as well, but we don’t learn where everyone is from). The kids are rowdy at times, focused at others. Their French is laced with slang, foreign words, and, occasionally, profanity. Some participate, you know the posture, leaning forward, arm fully extended, up and forward (but they don’t say “me me me me me”). Some lean back, laugh, don’t pay attention. (continues beneath the fold)

They talk back. He talks back. They say things they shouldn’t. So, at least once, does he. There’s parent conferences, trips to the office. There’s also a few scenes with other teachers, with administrators. We don’t see their classes, though, just a bit of their conversations with François.

There’s just enough of a story to follow. But that class! This is not Boston Public or Welcome Back Cotter (or Room 222) or Wonder Years. It is not Blackboard Jungle (filmed here in the Bronx, Wootwoot!), or Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Heathers or Carrie or The Breakfast Club. It feels very very real. Much realer than even Dazed and Confused. And for good reason.

The cast: one actor*. All others are real teachers, real students. The author plays himself. The scenes are mostly improvised. The kids never had a script in hand. The former teacher who wrote the book the film is based on, consulted, and removed anything that seemed unrealistic. Fifty students participated in a year long workshop – and 24 of them ended up in the film. They play characters, not themselves, but do it incredibly naturally. (*playing a parent)

Go see the film, and then read the interview with Director Laurent Cantet and Author François Bégaudeau. (From the main page click “The Film” and then “Laurent Cantet and Francois Begaudeau Interview”). Click each line, and scroll through. It is amazing how they pulled this off. Two quotes:

I wanted to film those incredible oratory moments that are so frequent in a classroom, where relevance or strength of position doesn’t matter much and what counts above all is to have the last word. This is a game at which adolescents excel, a sort of no-exit rhetoric into which the teachers are often pulled in as well.

We explained the situation to the two or three students featured in the scene… But they did not know how we got to this stage. As for the others, they discovered what was going on bit by bit during the take. François guided the scene like a classroom course, and I intervened during the take, honing in on the scene, asking one person to be more precise, asking another to respond to a retort, etc. Each time it was amazing to see them take off again instantly, with the same energy they had before I interrupted them, while perfectly integrating my suggestions.

I  watched The Class with another teacher (a former chapter leader from a former high school). I think it helped to be able to poke each other when we recognized something. And we did. The teacher did some nice things, got some discussion going, teased gently. I thought he crossed lines as well, made mistakes, embarrassed a kid unnecessarily. And then the circular reasoning in the teachers’ discussions, the awkward pauses. It felt like school.

It was fun to watch. Teachers may find some extras in it (maybe not) but I think everyone will enjoy this one.  (Reviews: Cinematical; Le Monde(Fr))

The Class (Entre les Murs). French with subtitles. 129 minutes. Opened in NY and LA through today (Christmas), will have a wider opening early 2009.