anneeholden
You find yourself in a room. It is a bland, generic classroom, filled with rowdy French school kids. What an ordeal! Surprisingly, this movie is acclaimed as a great French movie, winning a Palme d'Or, which is one of a movie's highest honors. If you want to watch a movie which is slow moving and reminds you of everything you hate most about school, this movie is perfect! Entre les Murs is a dramatic movie, which was considered quite masterful at the French film festival in Cannes. Directed by Laurent Cantet, this movie won a Palme d'Or. Originally, Entre les Murs was a book written by François Bégaudeau, who is the lead actor in the movie, playing Mr. Marin. Eventually, the book was turned into a movie in 2008. The story is about a conflict between a determined French teacher with four years of experience and his students, who cause trouble in his class, and are determined not to learn. The movie is set in a small middle school on the outskirts of Paris, where the children are all too eager to avoid learning of any kind. Although they respect the school's principal, this diverse group of troubled kids disrespect the teachers on a daily basis, until it gets to the point where it is nearly impossible to control. During the movie, the viewer witnesses parent –teacher meetings, heated arguments between teachers and students, recess, and teacher conferences. The teacher of "the class" is a man named Mr. Marin, who initially appears to demand respect, and uses discipline to set a limit. Later, however, he completely loses control of an already dangerous group of students, and when things get hairy, Mr. Marin finds that even his reputation may be damaged. He is also brought to a rude awakening with the fact that teacher-student interactions are never one way. The beginning of this movie is slow, and never seems to speed up. As it is so eloquently put in the British TV series Doctor Who, "Is this how time normally passes? Really slowly. In the right order." This definitely would describe how it feels to watch Entre les Murs, since it so realistically portrays a classroom that it literally feels like you are being forced to go learn in French class with a strict teacher. As it sounds, it is not very enjoyable. To me, one of the main ideas of this movie is discipline, and the consequences of disciplining somebody. When any of the students in the movie are disrespectful, as they often were, they would be disciplined in regard to their misbehavior. Throughout the school year, however, this seemed to cause worse problems than forgiveness or a nicer punishment would. It seems that in order to be able to punish the students, the teachers must first develop a respectful relationship with them which does not involve friendship or fear, just understanding. In Entre les Murs, this is perhaps the hardest thing for the teachers to master, which is very different from my high school, where all of the teachers understand their students' views. Although they know the content, they don't care in the slightest about any of their students. Sure, they care about their grades, but they do not inquire into their personal life at all, nor do they look into alternate ways of improving these grades other than punishment. Mr. Marin is a relatively new teacher at this middle school, and sheds light on what may be the answer to this problem. I would only recommend this movie to people who can handle the whining complaints of others, or people who would understand the deeper meaning. If someone doesn't understand any deeper meaning in this movie, it is rather dull to watch, with no definite climax or resolution. Although I'm sure the book was much better than the movie, the movie does portray one thing which is pretty accurate: It uses the real students as its actors. The students whine a lot in the movie, so obviously someone must be pretty patient to even deal with actors such as these. Overall, I liked this movie, though I wouldn't watch it again. The character's personalities came through, and you could definitely tell how annoying they must've been in class. If I were to watch this movie on my own, I probably would've seen how slow it was, and switched to a different one. But, as it is, I was in my own French class watching this, so I could report back to you. I honestly don't know why this movie earned a Palme d'Or. Even though it was semi-interesting, it did not strike me as the best movie I have ever watched, and I think it would do better as a documentary. After all, movies are meant to entertain! However, this movie did show us American kids how schools are in France, and I liked that. Also, I can relate to this movie, as some of the characters look a lot like some kids I go to school with. Watch this movie if you have a lot of time and patience, but otherwise, I wouldn't bother with it.
Jackie_Chun
Some excellent films have won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival over the years: Apocalypse Now, Pulp Fiction, Gate of Hell, MASH, Taxi Driver, and many others. Entre Les Murs (The Class) doesn't seem worthy of such an honor. It is boring, amateurish, and comes off as dull.Entre Les Murs (2008) is a drama directed by Laurent Cantet and stars Francois Bégaudeu as a French teacher at an intercity school for troubled children in Paris. All the students have a distinct cultural background; including African and Chinese. Conflict arises between the teacher and students as the "plot" unfolds.Monsieur Marin, (Francois Bégaudeu) a French teacher, tries to teach a multi-cultural group of juvenile delinquents. He constantly seems like he's on the verge of slapping every one of them. Some students in particular that give him a hard time are Esmeralda, a girl who acts incredibly disrespectful towards her superiors, and Soulymane, an African boy who gets in trouble and is on the brink of being sent back to Africa. The film details the 9 month school year from beginning to end. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Entre Les Murs is interesting in the fact that most of it feels very real, but that's only because it is. The film's star, Francois Bégaudeu, wrote a novel of the same name detailing his experience as a teacher at a school for young hoodlums. In this regard, his acting seems very natural and fitting for the part. I like some of the scenes between him and the students because it does feel like the way many students argue with their teachers. It was an interesting idea, but it was poorly executed.Entre Les Murs had an interesting concept that just doesn't make good cinema. It really did not need to be a narrative film. They could have taken the same idea and made it a documentary or something. I have nothing against foreign films. I have seen other French films, along with some Italian and Japanese films.The French can make some great films, they practically invented modern filmmaking with Les Frères Lumières and the Georges Melies short films made over a century ago, but this time it feels like they are trying to simulate the average school day. Although some of the acting was decent and it probably had good intentions, at the end of the day, it's just a bland, uninspired mess. It looks like the film was shot with a cheap camcorder, it lacks any non-diegetic sound, and it's just not very good. I would recommend the film if you are an insomniac and your Ambien isn't working. I give it 3.5/10.
paul2001sw-1
Laurent Cantet's absorbing film, 'The Class', tells an apparently true tale of the life in the year of a French schoolteacher. It's a portrait of an incredibly dedicated and imaginative man, working to engage with a mostly first or second generation immigrant class whose members are not bad children but who fundamentally have, in many cases, little idea of why they are in school in the first place. Teacher and script-writer François Bégaudeau plays the lead role; the self-portrait is flattering, but not overly so, the story of his efforts to cross the cultural chasm are fascinating and convincing, and the fruits of his labours real yet frustratingly small. One to watch if you've ever been tempted to utter the old cliché that "those who can't, teach".
