Entre Les Murs (‘The Class’)
Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.
The Class is a 2008 film directed by Laurent Cantet. Its original French title is Entre les murs, which means "Between the Walls". It is based on the 2006 novel of the same name by François Bégaudeau. The film received the Palme d'Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. The novel is a semi-autobiographical account of Bégaudeau's experiences as a French language and literature teacher in an inner city middle school in Paris, particularly illuminating his struggles with "problem children" Esmerelda (Esmeralda Ouertani), Khoumba (Rachel Regulier), and Souleymane (Franck Keïta). The film stars François Bégaudeau in the role of the teacher.
The film covers an academic year, beginning with the teachers gathering for the autumn term, introducing themselves to each other and being welcomed by the principal, an unsmiling figure wearing rimless glasses. It ends with an informal game of soccer between staff and pupils and a long hand-held shot of an empty classroom.
The camera never leaves the school. The film is set in the staff room, the playground, the dining room, the principal's office, a conference room, and the classroom where François Marin (François Bégaudeau), is a homeroom counselor and teaches French language and literature to a mixed group of 14 and 15 year olds.
The film concentrates on Marin as he tries to keep order in the class, mediating between conflicting ethnic groups, quieting the rowdy, bringing out the reticent and trying to educate them. The class is difficult, and in some ways the brightest are the most disruptive. When he teaches them the complexities of French verbs and tenses, they challenge the need to know such things. People don't talk like that. He gives them The Diary of Anne Frank to study, but none of them bothers to read it. One of the smartest pupils, the near-nihilistic Tunisian teenager Esmerelda, says she can't be bothered to read books. Marin tries to get an insight into the inner workings of the pupils; they write self-portraits which describe their aspirations, hobbies and dislikes. These are eventually collated by Marin who creates an end-of-year book with them. Marin manages to win over the sparsely driven Souleymayne, from Mali, by allowing him to develop his gift for photography and make his self portrait a pictorial biography. But Souleymayne's insolence and disobedience are his downfall as a confrontation with Marin and the class end in an act of violence.
Teacher François Marin and his colleagues are preparing for another school year teaching at a racially mixed inner city high school in Paris. The teachers talk to each other about their prospective students, both the good and the bad. The teachers collectively want to inspire their students, but each teacher is an individual who will do things in his or her own way to achieve the results they desire. They also have differing viewpoints on the students themselves, and how best to praise and discipline them. The administration of the school tries to be as fair as possible, which includes having student representatives sit on the student evaluation committee. Marin's class this year of fourteen and fifteen year olds is no different than previous years, although the names and faces have changed. Marin tries to get through to his students, sometimes with success and sometimes resulting in utter failure. Even Marin has his breaking point, which may result in him doing things he would probably admit to himself are wrong. But after all is said and done, there is next year and another group of students.
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