Review of The Class (2008) by Johns. — 07 Mar 2009

This film is riveting. Period. Forgive me for what will sound like an incredibly arrogant and pedantic comment, but every negative review I've read of this film decries its lack of realism in that these students are not violent enough to be convincing Parisian "hoodrats," so there's no reason to care.

But that is a conclusion borne of a deeply America-centric lack of understanding of the subject material here. Firstly, a quick Google search of French (or all of Europe, for that matter) crime statistics will show that the "Lean on Me" vintage of gun-toting, crack-selling inner-city students is an almost uniquely American phenomenon.

The "hard-knock life" is a subjective thing, and it's worse here in the US because, overall, crime ITSELF is worse here in the US than Europe--and, for the most part, the world. Secondly, and more importantly, one needs to take into account the extraordinary difficulties with racial tensions France is having today.

France is, both historically and currently, a country rife with racism that hasn't yet figured out how to deal with the incessant tidal wave of "invaders" from its colonies, who "threaten" to upset the very "Frenchness" at the heart of the French.

And on top of that, there is little acknowledgment of the racial tensions within the country--this is why there has been wave after wave of race riots in African and Arab neighborhoods in Paris over the past ten years.

It is precisely these issues--usually subtextually, but occasionally in boldface--that this film deals with. These are children who are angry, lost and confused--not because they are thrust into a life of crime and killing by abject poverty and/or absent parents, but because they are thrust into a country where they are commanded to adopt an identity--to be "French"--they not only don't want, but haven't been given an opportunity to understand.