Film Review: The Class
The Class
Sometimes a raw slice of life can be more compelling than any far-fetched fantasy – at others it can be as uninspiring as two hours, or in this case 128 minutes trapped in a cupboard. Unfortunately, this was the latter.
Yes, it’s honest, unflinching and real, but while directors such as Mike Leigh manage to use this form of storytelling to produce films of extraordinary, peculiar beauty, Laurent Cantet’s attempt feels like no more than a feature-length version of a teachers’ recruitment advert.
Yes, it touches, vaguely, on themes of racism, immigration and teacher-pupil conduct, but rather than following these potentially intriguing plotlines, the action wafts round them all too fleetingly, and much of the focus and dialogue is on endless lessons on French verbs.
The film is based on the Entre les Murs (Between the Walls), a novel that François Bégaudeau wrote to capture his experiences of teaching in a Paris school, but rather than offering any interpretation or insight, he does the equivalent of reporting conversations verbatim – fascinating for Bégaudeau and his fellow teachers, but not so much for the audience.
The film has been dubbed the new Dead Poets Society, but lacks the emotional swoops of its predecessor, sacrificing any sense of narrative for a realism that could have been just as easily achieved by placing hidden cameras in any school in the world.
In fact, the most interesting thing about the film is the fact that it, like many of its characters, fails to meet its potential, and yet, inexplicably, it managed to win the Cannes Palme d’Or. Clearly other audience-members picked up on some fabulous quality we missed.
Director Laurent Cantet
Writer François Bégaudeau
Starring François Bégaudeau, Nassim Amrabt, Laura Baquela, Cherif Bounaidja Rachedi, Juliette Demaille
Showing at Watershed, Bristol, until March 19th 2009, and cinemas nationwide
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