Director: Laurent Cantet (Human Resources, Heading South, )
Writers: Robin Campillo, Laurent Cantet
Novel & Screenplay: François Bégaudeau
Producers: Caroline Benjo, Carole Scotta
Starring: François Bégaudeau, Nassim Amrabt, Laura Baquela, Cherif Bounaïdja Rachedi, Juliette Demaille, Dalla Doucoure, Arthur Fogel, Damien Gomes
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running time: 128

How many times can we see the idealistic, young teacher take a classroom full of troubled kids and turn them around until they graduate happily at the end of the year? Not enough apparently. Just when you think this overdone genre can’t possibly get any more snooze-worthy, films like Half Nelson and The Class come along and offer a fresh angle, twisting the possibilities. I can actually believe that with the right minds, this very specialized sub-genre could continue for each new generation and inspire teachers, students and the viewing audience for years to come.

The premise is simple. It’s the first day of class for an extremely diverse and energetic group of roughly 14-16 year-old students in a suburb of Paris, France. The film focuses on one room and one scholastic subject of the day: French class. The teacher is a patient and charismatic young man who eagerly wants to teach these kids both the lesson for the day but is also willing to go outside the “boundaries” of the curriculum to discuss current events or any other issues or concerns the students might have; even if they’re obviously just trying to be troublesome and confrontational. That’s basically it. We sit in this classroom throughout the year and just watch the student/teacher dynamic evolve and breathe into something fascinating; reminding us all what it was like to be a teenager.

Beyond the classroom, there are brief scenes of the various teachers in the school meeting together to discuss programs and procedures and various administrative issues. Unbeknownst to this author, apparently in Europe (or at least at this particular school in France) it is typical for all of the teachers to come together as a collective group and discuss each student individually and assess their behavior, progress, marks, etc. Two elected representatives from the student body are also present at these meetings which of course brings about some turmoil within the meeting and also animosity between the teachers and students once the discussed information is fed back to the students at large. This method of grading is both baffling and interesting from an American point of view and the merits or disadvantages to this system are worth pondering and discussing in and of itself.

The real highlight of this film however is obviously the mood, aural dynamic and atmosphere within the classroom. It’s unbelievably realistic. It rings truer than almost any fictional movie I can ever remember. Without reading any of the “making of” interviews with cast and crew, I can only assume one of three things that went on to make this film feel so believable:

1) All of the actors involved are highly trained and are following a script and this particular collective of 15-20 amazing actors just happen to have just the right amount of chemistry to display perfection.
2) A bunch of equally great actors are given a rough idea of where the conversation should go and then allowed to ad-lib a little.
3) These are all completely unscripted scenes and the dialogue is all natural and the director just told these kids, “go nuts and let’s see where it leads,” and then it just happened to emerge as a completely amazing, engrossing and original piece of film making.

The second conclusion is sort of a hybrid of the other two and the only explanation that makes sense. Even so, if these uncut, 15 minute conversation pieces are ad-libbed by a bunch of teenagers, each one of these actors deserve an Oscar right now. I just can’t wrap my brain around exactly how this film went about being made. It feels like a documentary; as though a camera was set in the corner of the room of this classroom from which emerged an incredibly interesting conversation and struggle for verbal and psychological supremacy between a teacher and his students.

Because of the diversity of people in the classroom, it’s easy for anyone who went through the public education system to find someone in the film that they can empathize with. Whether you were the smart kid, the quiet one, the trouble-maker, the class clown, the average student, the talker, the teacher’s pet or the outsider, they are all here and they are all given their screen time and they are all captured with pitch perfect display.

If I had one complaint it would be that the film makes an attempt at a more meaningful plot to take over for the final 30 minutes or so. I suppose that this was done for two reasons. One, to placate those who might say that “nothing ever happens in the movie; it’s just a bunch of talking”. Which is obviously rubbish as plenty of “stuff” happens, it’s just nuanced and real life disguising itself as everyday nothingness. The second reason would be that the story needs to conclude somehow. And to conclude, there must be a resolution of something. So for there to be a resolution, a tangible artifice must be contrived. I understand this point and why it was done, but to me, the strength of the film does not lie in its plot details, it lies with the strength of the cast and the classroom dynamic. Veering away from this structure really only hurts the movie; but admittedly, just barely.

As a whole, this is one of the finest made films you’re likely to see this year. It might not be as engrossing, entertaining or as hard-hitting as some other dramas you might run across, but in terms of execution, this is a masterpiece of a film that is not to be missed. Hence, The Cannes film festival got it right once again awarding this film with its presitgious, Palme d’Orr.