The film raises important questions about learning, authority and discipline, and is honest enough to admit that it doesn’t really have any answers.
Comment
03/06/09
The Class (2008)
97
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:137
Fresh:133
Rotten:4
Average Rating:8/10
Consensus: Energetic and bright, this hybrid of documentary style and dramatic plotting looks at the present and future of France through the interactions of a teacher and his students in an inner city high school.
Theatrical Release:27-02-2009
Synopsis: Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, master French director Laurent Cantet's THE CLASS is an absorbing journey into a multicultural high school in Paris over the course of a... [More]
Starring: François Begaudeau, Nassim Amrabt, Laura Baquela, Cherif Bounaidja Rachedi
Director: Laurent Cantet
Reviews for The Class
Cantet, whose parents were both teachers, carries it on and he elicits marvellous performances from a cast who are, we're assured, not merely playing versions of themselves.
03/06/09
By casting aside rose-tinted spectacles and *Blackboard Jungle*-style gritty-delinquency clichés, *The Class* pays so much more respect to teachers, and to pupils. Goodbye Mr Chips, indeed.
03/06/09
It is a talky film that avoids happy endings and easy solutions. Instead, it grips with a tale that feels remarkably true to life and leaves you with an even greater appreciation of the people seeking to inspire future generations.
03/03/09
In addition to being one of the best school films of recent times, this is a troubling but gripping exposé of the cultural and racial divisions crippling Europe. Intelligent, well acted and deeply discomfiting.
02/27/09
Top CriticA sparkling, clever work whose ensemble cast impresses, surprises, wrongfoots and disappoints you in exactly the same fashion a class might its teacher.
02/27/09
Top CriticFrench director Laurent Cantet does something miraculous with it in this fresh piece of humanist, realist, optimist cinema.
02/27/09
Top CriticThe Class confirms and extends Cantet's status as one of the masters of European social cinema. It's a hugely important film.
02/27/09
Top CriticThis is a fleeting glimpse into a rarely examined world. Despite its honest portrayal of teachers as overworked, underpaid and underappreciated, you even leave the cinema wanting to teach.
02/27/09
Don't let the aura of subtitles and arthouse put you off - this is probably the finest schoolroom drama ever made.
02/27/09
An uncompromising and humane look at issues facing both teachers and students, The Class is an uplifting, thought-provoking, and it's only when the final bell rings you realise just how good it is.
02/27/09
Partially improvised, using a real (ex-)teacher and real schoolkids in note-perfect performances, Cantet’s film recreates life in a tough inner-city school with breathtaking authenticity.
02/27/09
Intelligent, well acted and deeply discomfiting.
02/27/09
Top CriticAt its best, The Class has the authenticity of documentary. But even at its best, it lacks the structure and emotional rewards of drama.
02/27/09
Raw, challenging and, refreshingly, with no cheesy ending, this is a classroom drama Hollywood could never have made.
02/27/09
It is not often a director creates exactly what they set out to achieve, but when Laurent Cantet decided to use a school as a “microcosm of the world” it turned out perfectly.
02/27/09
How could anyone not love Laurent Cantet’s The Class (Entre les murs)? Last year’s Golden Palm winner is the best film about schoolteaching I have seen: a wise, funny cry of helplessness before the tsunami of anarchy that can be school-age adolescence.
02/27/09
Cantet has offered another subtly incisive study of work, class and family.
02/27/09
A satisfying prime antidote to surface-level cinema.
02/27/09
To say this is an important film would perhaps be offputting — but it is, and please don’t be offput.
02/27/09
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