THE CLASS (ENTRE LES MURS) 3.5*** Sit still now and pay attention because class is now in session. The 2008 winner at Cannes for the Palmes d’Or and an Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, ENTRE LES MURS (THE CLASS), is a surprisingly engaging experience considering what you are actually watching unravel on screen. Francois Bégaudeau is a real teacher and a novelist. He wrote a book about his experiences teaching teenagers in a troubled Parisian neighborhood, translated the book into a screenplay and now finds himself playing, “Francois Marin” a version of himself in the film. It is now our turn to attend his French class and watch in amazement as the games play out. The students are 13 to15 year-olds, a mini-“United Nations” of insolent, sarcastic and hormonal teenagers from everywhere French is spoken — Morocco to China to Mali and the Caribbean. But for all their problems, the kids come off as distinct personalities — difficult, insufferable at times, culturally handicapped but human and vulnerable. .



Calling what happens in Marin’s classroom a game is a gross understatement. It is more like a war of minds and egos. Not surprisingly, the students care more about social status and fitting in than learning. So they spend much of the class time coming up with witty quips and trying to look smart and tough in front of their classmates. .

The entire cast is stellar which is is all the more impressive considering that a majority of them are real students and have never acted before, including Bégaudeau himself. “The Class” is a great film, funny one minute as the banter flies through the room like a renegade spitball and distressing the next, when you realize that scenarios just like this are happening all over the world. "The Class" is also strikingly authentic in its details. That ranges from the behavior in Marin's intense classroom to the teachers' lounge where some are more concerned about their snacks and coffee than the curriculum or the students.

Appropriately, the movie is in French with subtitles…and since the exchanges between teacher and students are fast and furious, you have to be a quick reader…so be prepared !!!

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