Review of The Class (2008) by Tayyab R — 08 Sep 2012

Entre les murs (2008) is a hyperrealistic rendering of the goings-on at a school in the Parisian banlieues. The main focus lies on one class and their French teacher, François Marin, who faces all the difficulties of his job on a daily basis.

From the closing credits, I gather that the pupils are playing themselves (i.e. they are not actors), which makes their performance all the more impressive. Some of the other characters (i.e. the parents) are supposedly played by actors.

The high degree of realism makes the film somewhat less exciting than many a comparable production, but the obvious presence of a script (=development towards climax) fully compensates for that. I must say that this film has taught me many things.

It struck me that, despite the fact that this school is urban, multicultural and 21st-century, the difficulties are tough, but not that different from what I experienced in my school years. I am from the Netherlands, where I frequented religious schools (French schools are all non-denominational) in a non-urban environment that was in no way multicultural.

Moreover, we're talking twenty years earlier than Entre les murs. And still, my classes were not much less problematic than Marin's class. So things have changed for the worse, but only slightly so.

This film has also made me realize that multiculturalism is not the root of all evil. The class is not difficult because of the racial mixture it is (some immigrant pupils are a paragon of diligence), but because (as always) only a handful of troublemakers suffices to mess things up for the rest, and, most importantly, because the teachers are trying to be far too reasonable and understanding.

One sometimes wonders when and why it was decided to start regarding minors as reasonable adults âwho have rights tooâ? and why the good old enlightened despot was abolished. In one scene, two girls from the class (including one notorious troublemaker) are sitting in on a teachers' meeting, for reasons of transparency, no doubt.

I wonder how deep one has sunk, or what sort of Stockholm syndrome has hit someone, when the enemy is granted an audience. When I had seen the entire film, I couldn't help thinking: you've brought all of this upon yourselves, teachers.

And modern-day parents.