The Class - 02 May 2010

Principal cast: François Begaudeau, Nassim Amrabt, Laura Baquela, Cherif Bounaidja Rachedi, Juliette Demaille, Dalla Doucoure

Film notes: The Class (Entre les murs) looks like a documentary, but is actually docu-fiction. It is a spin-off from François Begaudeau's novel about his experiences as a teacher of French in a multi-ethnic high school on the eastern edge of Paris. Begaudeau plays himself, as it were, in a recreation of a year's-worth of classroom reality, shot week-to-week over a full school year. The film taps into a long-running debate in France about the role of the republican school in shaping the citizenry, and how well the republican model can accommodate ethnic difference. Viewers should also be aware of the republican ideal of the teacher-hero. But most immediately, The Class depicts the recognizable drama of how to get reluctant teenagers to take the demands and the pleasures of learning seriously. Ethnic factors do sharpen the teacher-student tussles, at times, but it's the interplay of character types at the chalk-face that defines the genuine drama of being "intramuros" together. A generous but prickly teacher, dedicated to disciplinary standards and wanting to foster dialogue in the classroom, negotiates shy ones and lippy ones, bold ones and aggressive ones, and the everpresent force of chat. And vice versa. Intellectual exchange can suddenly be derailed by a mood swing or a perceived slur.

Director Laurent Cantet (Ressources humaines; L'Emploi du temps) captures the physicality of the classroom energetically. Neither a romanticist nor a doomsayer, Cantet gives us education as one of the great, fraught social games. The film is a marvellous talk-fest, where the latest in street-slang meets the language of Malraux.