The Class

This film is closely related to the Italian film Gomorrah in its style. It is not a classical feature film in the true sense of the word, where the screenplay presents a story to the viewer, but rather a docudrama that subordinates the plot on the screen to the greatest authenticity of the environment, the reality of the behavior of the characters, and the overall testimony about the state of French education. It is necessary to emphasize that Laurent Cantet did not choose an extreme case, but rather an ordinary school from the outskirts of a big city with a number of immigrant children and unmotivated urban poverty. French education suffers from massive truancy and criminal activity, so most schools elsewhere in Europe are relatively better off in this respect. On the other hand, I get the impression that they are trying to catch up with this disadvantage. Given the above, it is not an entertaining film, but rather a truly documentary view of the issue. Overall impression: 80%. (19/04/2011)

A French Beverly Hills 90210. Yes, I already used this comment in my review for Truffaut’s Pocket Money, but this is because these two movies of his have more in common than it might seem at first glance. It’s just that The Class beats the track of “reality above all" so much that it’s absolutely un-movie-like (in terms of action, tension rise etc.). It might have been a tad better and meaningful if it were a documentary. (26/04/2009)