Department of youth: The Class under review

Laurent Cantet’s The Class (Entre les murs) follows a group of racially mixed adolescent students over the course of a school year. Much of it is set in the French class of a energetic young teacher. Other scenes capture students interacting in the courtyard, teachers meeting in staff rooms, where they sometimes vent their panic, and, in some of the film’s most entertaining and unnerving scenes, parent-teacher interviews. Tensions between kids and instructors rise and fall. Khoumba, who used to be congenial, suddenly refuses to cooperate in class; Wei, A Chinese student still working on his French, has a parent deported; Souleymane acts tough and chilled but lashes out when cornered; Esmeralda, who wants to be either a rapper or a cop, talks back relentlessly—and she does so with enjoyable brio.

The modus operandi is simple and clean. The narrative is subordinate to the natural order of events. The aesthetic, somewhat reflective of the filming process, resembles documentary. There’s a deceptive veneer of artlessness to The Class that contributes greatly to its arresting charm, but the elegant rhythms, un-telegraphed bursts of insight and resonant ambiguities represents a masterfully gauged collaboration between highly alert filmmakers and an unusually large and evenly represented ensemble. (The techniques of Robert Altman or Mike Leigh come to mind, though either would have made a very different movie.) The talk is at times sublimely spontaneous, and the editing by Robin Campillo, also one of the credited screenwriters, renders it lively and fluid. You ask me, the result is a genuine masterpiece.

The students are actual students from Françoise Dolto Junior High in Paris ’ 20th arrondissement. Their parents, with one exception, are the students’ actual parents. These facts alone don’t ensure verisimilitude—not to mention entertainment or intelligence—and its telling that while improvisation around set scenarios seems to have been the approach, few of the players are “playing themselves,” as though such a thing were strictly possible. Cantet facilitated weekly workshops with the students for eight months. A key participant in these workshops was François Bégaudeau, an actual teacher and the author of the book on which the movie’s based. Bégaudeau also plays “François,” a version of himself. He’s a charming, challenging ringleader, with a policy of open, respectful exchange, encouraging students to talk about their personal interests and insecurities to the point where we’re provoked into wondering whether privacy is finally a detriment to learning and the self-realization that ideally accompanies it.

Maybe what’s most fulfilling in this is the sheer power of performance as it occurs naturally in certain social contexts. The performances by Bégaudeau, whose laid-back theatricality is clearly a major component of his talent as a teacher, and the students are not virtuosic. They are the product of a natural inclination to discover some aspect of ourselves through interaction with others, pushing boundaries, thinking out loud. It’s an inclination that’s been cultivated here beautifully. The Class looks like it was as much fun to make as it is to watch and listen to. And when its over, when the rooms are empty and the chairs left askew, there’s something just a little sad about it’s passing, yet also something exhilarating in its promise of renewal.