The Class

A movie review from The Movie Snob

The Class (B). This is a French movie originally entitled Entre les Murs, and it was nominated for the Oscar for best foreign film of 2008. It is about life in an inner-city Parisian school, and more particularly about a French teacher and his thoroughly multicultural class of 14-15 year olds. As I understand it, the guy who plays the teacher really is or was a teacher, and the kids who play the students are actually students, not actors, so the film has a documentary feel to it. The class is a melange of French, Arab, African, and even a couple of Asian students, and they delight in giving Mr. Marin a hard time. And he gives it right back to them. We also get glimpses at the faculty behind closed doors; one guy is a hardliner who wants the rules enforced and the troublemakers expelled, while our protagonist Mr. Marin constantly argues for a gentler approach. Tensions mount over a disruptive student named Souleymane who might be sent back to Africa if he is expelled. Good movie, if perhaps not as great as I expected.