THE CLASS Review

This movie almost had me fooled. It seems like a documentary but it’s not and yet it’s so realistic in every way. Any teacher that has taught high school and any student that has gone through that phase will be able to relate to THE CLASS. It’s… thought-provoking and very well-acted. You can’t get a more convincing portrayal of a classroom on the big screen than what THE CLASS has to offer. A must-see, a very important film.

A remarkable new film about what happens over the course of a year between a single collège (junior high or middle school) class in the multi-ethnic 20th arrondissment of Paris and their French teacher.
Director Laurent Cantet shot multiple improvised takes of real students and a real teacher using three cameras to make “The Class.”

Forget Freedom Writers and Dangerous Minds, nothing that Hollywood produces can compare to THE CLASS when it comes to dealing with teacher-student interactive relation in a classroom setting. The conflicts that this movie presents aren’t far-fetched, especially when you have a bunch of group of student from different ethnic backgrounds and families.

Based on an autobiographical novel by Francois Begaudeau who’s also the lead star, he cleverly re-enacts his experiences and the struggle and stress a teacher has to go through day in and day out. It’s fascinating how the story makes us wonder if he’s a noble teacher or one that simply gives up on a student, at times he can be the smartest guy in the room and yet some of things he says could backfire and then you see the other side of him that you’re not too fond of.
Some of you may want to justify his actions but some of you may feel pity for the student instead. The student I’m referring to is the one that, out of all the trouble kids in the room, he creates the ultimate conflict, who brings the teacher to the toughest decision he has to make in that school year.

Director Laurent Cantet only relied on three cameras and yet Cantet utilized them to the fullest extent to the movie’s advantage. They capture the bitter expression the students have against their teacher and those who find the whole lesson to be useless but also catch glimpses from those who find the classroom helpful.
But it’s not just that, the movie also shows us two sides, the students and the teachers in their lounge. The adolescent conversation and teachers ganging up to expel a student. Throughout the entire thing, it makes you believe that they’re both against each other but at the end of the day, they all would still play soccer on the same field and it’s just another eventful school year for both sides.

* Place the cursor on the image below to check my grade for this film