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The Cannes Golden Palm winner gets a trailer.

Saw this tonight and thought it was great. Quite surprised there isn't more discussion about the film, but I found it to be one of the most immersive and realistic portrayals of school life I've ever seen on screen. It really captures how student/teacher relationships shift on a daily basis, and particularly the difficulty of teaching kids of immigrant families. Raw and compelling, this is something every teacher (or anyone who's thinking of becoming a teacher) should watch.

Yep, and since I'd already had my coffee, I took the bait! (Oops.)

Stuart Klawans liked Gomorrah and The Class.

I saw this the other night and enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. It was "entertaining"...smartass kids produce some pretty witty banter, and the film provides a fantastic view into the French education system's customs and curricula as well as some insight into contemporary cultural hierarchy (such as, a kid from a Caribbean French state is seen as "inferior" by the other students...). As someone who is interested in French language and culture, the film was very intriguing to me on many levels.
However, the movie was pretty gut-wrenchingly depressing at times. I deeply admire anyone who gets up every day to stand in front of such apathy (and hostility!) to try to simply make a connection, never mind teach something.
I fully agree that it should be mandatory viewing for anyone mulling over a teaching position.

I saw this today. It was incredibly good, avoiding all the clichés associated with the genre. Francois doesn't save any of the troubled kids (for a moment he makes a connection with Souleymane but trouble ensues), there's no trite lesson-learning so to speak or simple resolutions. The multiracial, multicultural class that Francois teaches could represent modern French society, and what struck me (and this is where I'm slightly out of my depth) was the uneasy relationship that France has with the nations it colonised. Many of the kids from African heritage assert this at the expense of their French identity - hopefully someone can clear this up because it seems a lot more tense that the British equivalent. Semi-improvised with a non-professional cast, it's one of the best ensemble pieces I've seen for a long time, incredibly natural, and blurs the line between fiction and straight out documentary. Very impressive.

Cash Flagg wrote:Coming to Blu-ray on August 11th.

It was shot on HD in the first place, so provided they don't completely bodge up the compression the chances of the transfer being flawless are pretty high.

domino harvey wrote:Those all have obvious appeals to middlebrow consumers at a Best Buy

That's interesting domino. A bit of a tangent, but perhaps you could help explain the US appeal of Entres les murs to me. I mean, it won the Palme d'Or and got good reviews, sure, (and I think it's a good film) but that doesn't explain why it has apparently grossed more Stateside than every other Cannes '08 Competition title combined (including Che, Synecdoche New York, Gomorra, Waltz with Bashir, A Christmas Tale and ten or so others). What is it about this French language social realist drama, without any name cast, that's so incredibly appealing to the mainstream?

Nothing wrote:

domino harvey wrote:Those all have obvious appeals to middlebrow consumers at a Best Buy

That's interesting domino. A bit of a tangent, but perhaps you could help explain the US appeal of Entres les murs to me. I mean, it won the Palme d'Or and got good reviews, sure, (and I think it's a good film) but that doesn't explain why it has apparently grossed more Stateside than every other Cannes '08 Competition title combined (including Che, Synecdoche New York, Gomorra, Waltz with Bashir, A Christmas Tale and ten or so others). What is it about this French language social realist drama, without any name cast, that's so incredibly appealing to the mainstream?

While I can't speak for Domino's reasoning, America does love it's underdog stories of white teachers helping underprivileged minorities stories. The Class though is the only one I can think of that has a male protagonist.

There is also the Substitute series

Nothing wrote:

domino harvey wrote:Those all have obvious appeals to middlebrow consumers at a Best Buy

That's interesting domino. A bit of a tangent, but perhaps you could help explain the US appeal of Entres les murs to me. I mean, it won the Palme d'Or and got good reviews, sure, (and I think it's a good film) but that doesn't explain why it has apparently grossed more Stateside than every other Cannes '08 Competition title combined (including Che, Synecdoche New York, Gomorra, Waltz with Bashir, A Christmas Tale and ten or so others). What is it about this French language social realist drama, without any name cast, that's so incredibly appealing to the mainstream?

In Canada, Toronto anyways, Entres les murs received a lot of coverage and was generally lauded by the indie press. Plus, winning an award/being nominated for an Oscar really pushes a movie here.

knives wrote:

Nothing wrote:That's interesting domino. A bit of a tangent, but perhaps you could help explain the US appeal of Entres les murs to me. I mean, it won the Palme d'Or and got good reviews, sure, (and I think it's a good film) but that doesn't explain why it has apparently grossed more Stateside than every other Cannes '08 Competition title combined (including Che, Synecdoche New York, Gomorra, Waltz with Bashir, A Christmas Tale and ten or so others). What is it about this French language social realist drama, without any name cast, that's so incredibly appealing to the mainstream?

While I can't speak for Domino's reasoning, America does love it's underdog stories of white teachers helping underprivileged minorities stories. The Class though is the only one I can think of that has a male protagonist.

Looking at Nothing's list, the answer is pretty clear: with the possible exception of A Christmas Tale (whose length might be a dealbreaker, and would certainly ensure fewer screenings per day), The Class is the only one of those films that I'd recommend wholeheartedly to my parents.

Who aren't American, admittedly, but theirs is exactly the kind of middlebrow taste (they're not remotely fazed by subtitles, but they are by anything especially challenging) that can trigger the difference between a modest success and a genuine arthouse breakthrough if enough people are of similar mind.

(this thread seems to have been hacked to shreds)
Anyway, finally saw this as part of the Cannes list (which if you aren't taking a part of you should). This was a great surprise, the second best teacher movie I have seen, and far beyond anything else I have seen from Cantet. He imitates documentary with nice pizzazz, but more importantly has an authentic understanding of the reality of the staff and kids. What I especially appreciated and which I have not seen in any other film on the subject is that the lead teacher is an old hand at this and not even terribly good at his job. By that I mean he is not a bad teacher, but his methods cut against these sorts of students leading to a lot of natural struggles. The Bill scene is a good example of it. The students are right that the names he chooses should be relatable to them and he is being stodgy and maybe racist by insisting upon white people names. The film doesn't make this black and white though with many of his tactics working. Cantet allows teaching to be a crapshoot which it is especially when the staff is distanced culturally or economically from their students who can be bags of shit just as easily as they can be charming and surprising in a good way (the photo montage and the apology letter are genuinely affecting because their evidence of growing is absent elsewhere in the film). Cantet shows fully what a complex range of realities any moment can present.