The Class Review
By David Kempler
Classic Ennui
Francois Marin (François Bégaudeau) is a French teacher in a classroom in a lower-class part of Paris. There are native-born kids, blacks from various countries, as well as a few Arabs. It is all neatly packaged together in an attempt to portray how a modern day classroom works, whether it be in France or most anywhere else. "The Class" and the book upon which it is based were written by Bégaudeau . They document his real-life experience as a teacher.
Laurent Cantet directs this extraordinarily ordinary film that borders on the edge of a documentary snoozefest. It tries so hard to be "real" that it seems anything but. The teacher tries hard to be friends with the kids. He doesn't understand that that is a strategy pretty much doomed to failure. However, it doesn't fail. It just flounders and goes nowhere, just like the rest of "The Class".
It's not enough that we have to watch a never-ending series of yawn-inducing scenes of the misbehaving kids that are overwhelmingly bent on learning absolutely nothing. We are also subjected to watching the inner workings of teachers talking with each other about the situation in the school. None of the instructors appears to have any emotions and there isn't a single backbone in the room. As a result, we the audience neither like nor dislike the teachers. The same goes for the students. At least a couple of the students are mildly annoying.
Francois Marin finally succumbs to the pressures of his classroom and directs an inappropriate comment at two of the young ladies in his class, While the comments are inappropriate, they are not undeserved. As a result of his indiscretion, an attempt to toss out one of the students becomes complicated by what to do about the teacher's comments. I think the school falling victim to an arsonist might have made for a far more entertaining scenario.
Watching "The Class" reminded me of a television show called "Degrassi Junior High" of which I used to be a big fan. They tackled issues of far more import and even though it was forced to wrap things up a little too neatly to some degree, it retained an honest integrity that kept it fresh for quite some time. That "The Class" is nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film this year means that either I am way off base in my judgment, the voters are dim bulbs or this is an incredibly weak year for foreign film.
