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Entre les murs (Collection Folio (Gallimard))

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One was the Italian crime drama Gomorra, based on a non-fiction bestseller about the Camorra's dealings. Fictionalizing that Esmeralda had read Plato's Republic was idiotic, and her explanation was atrocious. The film, with its limited budget, its cast of unknowns and its delicate handling of challenging themes, was not expected to be a major success. Still, that doesn't mean there aren't problems in the class, especially when most of the 13-year old kids in there are foreign (Moroccan, Chinese, etc. The English-language version of Entre les murs was published in April 2009 by Seven Stories Press under the title The Class.

For the majority of its running time, the drama in this movie occurs within the four walls of a single classroom, as Mr Marin tries to teach the feisty, combative and lively teenagers in his charge. Souleymane cheekily tells François that he has heard the teacher "likes men" - and insolently says that this is not his own accusation, just something he has heard. Laurent Cantet, whose parents were both teachers, carries it on and he elicits marvellous performances.However, education is not just about learning the very basics to get through life, but also about opening up horizons and giving you opportunities. I would find it difficult to believe someone who said s/he didn't feel what it is like to be in that classroom. Marin encounters his share of problem students, teen violence, ethnic tensions between classmates and education barriers within the group, all of which test his patience and -- more importantly -- his resolve as an educator.

However, I would warmly recommend it to teachers, students and parents alike, both in France and in the UK, as I believe the questions it raises are relevant to all of us. It is not as famous as “ Les Choristes ” but it received the Palme d’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and its touching and thought-provoking take on education and French society has been acclaimed by critics.

The Class is one of the rare films in this genre to offer us a flawed educator; Mr Marin is likable and well-meaning, but he's also weak and frequently unable to maintain his control over the students.

The comparison is legitimate but a bit weak, mostly because The Class focuses less on the Greeek tragedy structure typical of school-set dramas. The classes at Françoise Dolto are all like that too - people talk loudly, but I've been there four years and it hasn't disturbed me at all.

The classroom itself becomes the microcosmic stage on which the action is played out, and the cameras never leave the school. That crude insult ignites a violent row, which becomes toxic when François neglects to mention the "skanks" provocation in his official report.

The end result is extremely realistic, but it is a chiaroscuro form of realism, with each nuance of teenage behaviour so subtly drawn that it feels almost like a police procedural transplanted to different soil. At break-time she chats with her friends in the outside courtyard, exchanging gossip or comparing the latest mobile-phone ringtones.

The title — both in French and in its English translation — reflects the perspective adopted in the film: everything happens “between the walls” (the literal translation of “entre les murs”) of the school and the classroom, and we follow the life of teachers and students from the beginning to the end of a school year. In François's class, Esmeralda (Esmeralda Ouertani) and Khoumba (Rachel Regulier) predominate: they are smart but moody, idle and subversive, and just savvy enough about François's liberal scruples to wind him up. At the start, we weren't expecting the film to be such a success because it wasn't an American production with a big budget. Nevertheless, it requires the active participation and the INTEREST of the parents and a consensus of the scholar committees.

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