Between the Walls

So i just got back from seeing “The Class” (a terrible translation of the original title Entre Les Murs- between the walls); a simple little film that struck me in all the right places. It is a brilliant illustration of how sometimes what a film needs most is a whole lot of nothing. No gigantic plot hooks, crazy twists, over complicated drama, feel good moments. Sometimes you need a bit of pure and simple realism. This movie seems to deliver just that yet still pack some power.

When i saw the trailers i was like, oh god, its another “cool teacher helps troubled kids” movie. But it wasn’t. Leave it to the French to take out over dramatic Michelle Pfeiffer and put in some simple humility that makes the whole experience so much more enjoyable. Perhaps the honesty and sincerity is driven by the fact that the person who wrote the book -> wrote the script and -> acted as the main character in the movie.

And it’s not even about him, its about so many things on so many levels yet its about nothing more than everyday life.

Its a really straight forward story following a teacher and his realistically multi-ethnic, multi-personalitied class, through ups and downs of every day normal school life. And even about the issues, i lightly touches on the surface but doesn’t dwell on them or dig this whole story around their troubles. Everyone has their thing and everyone has to deal with it in their own way. We find out a little about everyone but never enough to completely understand what is goin in their head. And thats the way it should be, another place where hollywood takes us too intricately to the root and source of problems, which we can never really do in real life. Other people’s problems are complex and we can never understand them unless we were born as them.

Beyond the class room it also looks at the institution of this public french school: staff meetings, watercooler moments and the clash of teachers with different teaching styles / perspectives. The most interesting part of this film is that it makes no judgment, it takes no side it just lets you watch everything for what it is. Just like real life.

It watched like a documentary without having the pressure of being a documentary (no quirky narration, dramatic interviews or concise analytical thesis) It was basically as if a camera man went into any average class room and just recorded.

I definitely think we need more honest films like this. Again to show us what we often forget, how interesting human society is, how interesting people are, through all their darkness and happiness, through their natural issues, cause and effect of personalities. In the end it’s really hard not to just fall in love with all the kids. I can imagine how teachers can do that. This film is so real it’s tangible. you can get so involved and feel like you understand these characters and people so well without really needing to know them at all. Just observing from the side.

Between this, I’ve Loved you so long and Persepolis, even in recent times the french keep winning me over. I should keep my eye out on what they are doing more often.