I just saw “The Class”The Class (Entre les murs)


(Between The Walls in French), the film which won the Palm d’Or in Cannes. It’s a nice film.

The film takes place in school, French class (for French, not English speakers), of 13 year olds. I’ll quickly mention a couple of things about the film.

1. R.e.s.p.e.c.t. – everyone’s looking for it. Teachers constantly complain of lack of respect, as do the kids, neither gives much respect to the other. To both it is crucial and perhaps the most important thing.

2. Playground – the kids play at soccer outside, while, between the walls, the teachers play with the kids. All a sort of playing.  

It’s nice how he shows it. The way the teachers care and don’t care at all about the kids. The similarity between the communities of the kids and the teachers. I must say that from teachers I talk to, all of them mostly complained about the lack of respect they got. I don’t really know how new is this, but though it is definitely not at all new, it is getting lately to new highs. The main point of the film I would say is this mix of the grownups and of the kids – the equality the kids see, together with the total separation that the adults want. (In French there is a different way how you talk to people “below” you which thankfully doesn’t exist in English.)


This made me think of the very eloquent discussion on topic of adulthood nowadays between Mia and Dave here: post  post  post

  So to conclude, the film shows this in quite a nice way, and is worth seeing. It is a bit on the long side, and the school kids who sat in front of me got quite bored at some point and constantly jumped around, but it’s well made and gives a good picture on the problems of being a teacher at the moment.