François Bégaudeau is a former schoolteacher who enjoys a successful career as a film critic and novelist in France. In 2006, he published Entre les Murs, a novel rooted in his real-life experiences at the helm of an ethnically diverse classroom in a tough Parisian neighbourhood. Taking the whole art-imitating-life thing for another loop, Bégaudeau then translated his novel into a screenplay and offered himself the lead role, in which he essentially plays himself.
Despite the circumstances, The Class (as Entre Les Murs has been titled for its English release) doesn’t come off as an ego stroke in the least. In fact, Bégaudeau’s unique relationship with the source material heightens the film’s realism, which is so authentic that the movie could nearly pass itself off as a documentary. The film is loose on plot, simply following a junior high French class over the course of a school year. The bulk of the scenes and improvised dialogue were shot inside the classroom, with a few glimpses onto the playground and into teachers’ meetings.
Though not a lot happens until the latter part of the movie, The Class isn’t all about conjugating French verbs or studying The Diary Of Anne Frank. Bégaudeau’s class of young teens (who, incidentally, are also non-actors who are also essentially playing versions of themselves) are a particularly diverse bunch, with issues of race, country of origin and religion frequently playing into their daily exchanges. While the film is subtle enough not to try to proclaim any great political agenda, the dramas of the classroom obviously mirror the changing cultural makeup of Western Europe.
Apart from the hyperrealism, what really sets The Class apart from the existing pile of idealistic-teacher-at-an-inner-city-school films is that Bégaudeau’s onscreen alter ego doesn’t try to pull a Stand and Deliver or even a Dead Poets Society on his class. He’s not there to raise the school’s standardized test scores or to revolutionize the way the students see their lives. He cares, but his expectations are realistic and he just wants to see these kids make their way through life. They’re not perfect, but neither is he.
All of this makes for a movie that is slow-paced and at times mundane, yet ultimately fascinating. The Class may not have the drama of Michelle Pfeiffer or Edward James Olmos whipping a bunch of lost causes into shape, but it does offer a much more honest and textured take on what goes on inside of the classroom.
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