Based on this evidence not only do I never want to become a teacher, but I have new found respect for those people who do want to educate our youth. Laurent Cantent's Palme D'or winning drama about a year in the life of a French teacher in Paris is a wonderful look at the profession as well as the students who populate the classroom. Based on the book by François Bégaudeau, who also wrote the screenplay and stars in the film. The Class is a masterful dissection of not only school life but the French education system. The film feels and is shot like a documentary. The most striking impression you gain from the film is the ethnic diversity on display in the classroom. Kids from Africa and Asia mingle with French students and this becomes one of the central issues explored, especially when one troubled student faces being sent back to Africa if expelled, and anothers mother turns out to be illegally living in the city.
What the film also does fantastically well, is critique not just the ethnic diversity of the the kids, but also look at the teachers, who despite having a seemingly impossible job are presented as human; frustrated, confused, compassionate, supportive of their colleagues. In fact the teachers and students are not too disimilar from one another. The kids fail to get enthusiastic about class, occasionally rebel against the autocratic system where students are considered second class citizens, especially by the French teacher, who blinkedly fails to see his patronising, arrogant approach stands to only isolate his kids, when a more compassionate understanding standpoint my reep reward. Having said that, the children are often impossible to teach, and, as one mother of a intelligent student puts it, they ultimately hold back and hinder those willing and able to learn.
The Class fails to provide any answers to the difficult issues which surround education, not just in France but no doubt everywhere, and for this it should be commended. There is no moralising, no high ground. The teachers have an impossible job which more often than not they are ill prepared and unequipped to deal with, and the children, in a lot of cases are written off; their reputations preceeding them.
Winner of the Palme D'or, The Class may well be the best film ever made about life in school for both the teachers and children, both victims of a system which seems enable to deal with the issue
s and problems which arise on a daily basis.
What the film also does fantastically well, is critique not just the ethnic diversity of the the kids, but also look at the teachers, who despite having a seemingly impossible job are presented as human; frustrated, confused, compassionate, supportive of their colleagues. In fact the teachers and students are not too disimilar from one another. The kids fail to get enthusiastic about class, occasionally rebel against the autocratic system where students are considered second class citizens, especially by the French teacher, who blinkedly fails to see his patronising, arrogant approach stands to only isolate his kids, when a more compassionate understanding standpoint my reep reward. Having said that, the children are often impossible to teach, and, as one mother of a intelligent student puts it, they ultimately hold back and hinder those willing and able to learn.
The Class fails to provide any answers to the difficult issues which surround education, not just in France but no doubt everywhere, and for this it should be commended. There is no moralising, no high ground. The teachers have an impossible job which more often than not they are ill prepared and unequipped to deal with, and the children, in a lot of cases are written off; their reputations preceeding them.
Winner of the Palme D'or, The Class may well be the best film ever made about life in school for both the teachers and children, both victims of a system which seems enable to deal with the issue
s and problems which arise on a daily basis.
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