Review- The Class by Michael Waalkes
The Class, a film by French director Laurent Cantet, is a thoughtful representation of modern French society through the filter of education. The film centers on François, a young teacher of French beginning his fourth year at a lyceé in an urban area of Paris. The class which François is teaching clearly shows the diversity of modern France, as immigrants from such countries as China, Mali, and Morocco populate the desks of François’ classroom. It is clear even from the beginning of the film that François faces a challenge in teaching his students, as his students frequently ignore his instructions and are disrespectful to him.
Especially unique to the film is that, unlike other urban school-focused films, it avoids turning the character of François into a saintly, near-perfect representation; in the film François frequently makes mistakes and comes into conflict with his students. In one particular scene, he uses the name “Bill” as an example for a sentence he devises, which leads his multi-cultural students to question why he uses such a “whitey” name instead of a name which would be more representative of the students’ culture. This scene illustrates the primary cultural tension of the film, as one of the students goes on to explain that she does not think of herself as French, even though she was born in the country. The film then continues with a focus on the character of Souleymane, a troubled student from Mali, who is primarily involved in one of the pivotal scenes of the film. Significantly, the ending is bittersweet for the characters, as François faces disciplinary action for some rash remarks about his students, while Souleymane is eventually expelled from the school for an accidental act of violence toward a fellow student.
The film is almost entirely shot within the school complex itself, thus completely focusing the film on the school and its inhabitants. Interestingly, even the scenes of the children playing in the school’s courtyard are filmed from above, which helps to emphasize the viewpoint of the teachers of the school as being isolated from their students. This seems to be essential to a point which the film was trying to make; that there is overwhelming tension contained within modern France. Overall, I felt that the film succeeds as a realistic portrait of the French education system, as well as a display of the issues in today’s French society.
I just finished up watching “The Class.” I thought the film did a really good job of showing the experiences of different ethnicities being meshed together in a community. This often created controversy in the classroom, and the teacher at most times does nothing to improve the situation. The children were very unruly at times; they talked back to the teacher and used offensive language. The tone was really set by the emotions and actions of the kids and the teacher in the classroom. There was no background music to create emotion in the film, but the film continually pulls at the emotions of the audience. The audience feels for the gifted students who are being held back by those who disrupt the class. The tone of the teacher is sarcastic and teasing at times, and the students respond in an audacious way in “The Class.”
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Comment on “The Class” by Joseph Peters
ReplyDeleteThe film “The Class” reminded me of my own high school experiences. The main character was the teacher, François; he was struggling with the daunting task of teaching 14 and 15 year old kids in a public school system. I know this sound like the classic American rowdy classroom story. But it was different in ways that were uniquely French culture associated. These kids were of many different cultural, ethnic, privileged and underprivileged backgrounds. The only thing the kids had in common was their commitment to disrupting the class, and their adolescent puberty struggles. François had to deal with the student’s rude remarks, disruptions, short attention spans, fits and raging hormones. This made his job very difficult. It all came to a dramatic climax when François mistakenly called some students skanks, which erupted the class into a furry of name calling and fighting.
I enjoyed this film because it displayed a timeless story with a unique French flare. The classic cinema story of a rowdy classroom was made brand new by the complex French cultural issues that were addressed. There were obvious language barriers but what was even more prevalent was the betrayal of religious and ethnic sects. This film made it clear to someone who was not from this country that there might be some systematic divisions between ethnic and religious groups, that clearly only come together in schools. There was also a major disconnect between the children and any adult figure. This was a great film. I would recommend to any one in any culture considering a career in teaching—it would be a good warning.
Mike
ReplyDeleteHere is a link:
http://www.ifc.com/news/2008/12/laurent-cantet-on-the-class.php
Here is my summary:
The article delivers a brief summary of The Class, before proceeding to an interview with the director, Laurent Cantet. In the interview, Cantet details some of the process of developing and making the film, as well as focusing on some of the themes of Cantet's works. The interview then allows the director to detail his view of modern French culture and society, and how it is portrayed in the class. The article is definitely a helpful supplement to viewing The Class, because of it's detailing of some of the background of the film.
By, ELI
ReplyDeleteNarrative Patterns for “The Class”
After watching “The Class”, I realized a few patterns that were showing up as the movie continued. One narrative pattern is the chalkboard in which a lot of the students learning were off of this. Every time the chalkboard was used the picture was up close to the hand to see closely what it was writing. I believe this was to put the audience in perspective of the students and what they were seeing. Another narrative pattern was the different nationalities and how each one of them acted. It seemed that each student stuck up for who they were and believed that they were the stronger of the nationalities there. The next narrative pattern I noticed was the inability of the students to understand simple expressions or words like when the teacher said “snob” or “intuition”. They seemed to be very ignorant of their age and everyone knew it including them, but the only person who respected them and tried to not be condescending and teach the students was the main teacher. This lead to the last narrative pattern of the students constantly getting in arguments about certain subjects they are learning such as imperfect indicative, verb, and writing their portfolios. This proves that the students are improving their learning skills by not worrying about things that go on out of class, but worrying about the important things that go on in class.
Alex
ReplyDeleteFormal Devise for the Class:
The lighting is very spotlight in the classroom which focuses and bring attention to the emotions on the students, with giving a very real setting. The editing does many fast changes in characters captioning the many actions in the classroom, and overall understanding the drama of a classroom on the whole. There really isn't very much of soundtrack, but displays this world in a very real way instead of a fantasy.
French culture is hard to determine in this film because all of the people are from different ethnicities and being part of a "classroom community." The divisions between the cultures were very evident within the film .Francois the teacher appeared to make a lot of mistakes inside the classroom.The film showed the struggles of a teacher in urban Paris.
ReplyDeletehttp://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=6558780&site=ehost-live
ReplyDeleteInterview with Laurent Cantet-AMAZING!
Must Read!