Entre les murs
Encyclopedia
The Class is a 2008 French drama film directed by Laurent Cantet
. Its original French title is Entre les murs, which translates literally to "Between the walls". It is based on the 2006 novel of the same name
by François Bégaudeau
. The novel is a semi-autobiographical
account of Bégaudeau's experiences as a French language
and literature
teacher in a middle school in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, particularly illuminating his struggles with "problem children" Esmerelda (Esmeralda Ouertani), Khoumba (Rachel Regulier), and Souleymane (Franck Keïta). The film stars Bégaudeau himself in the role of the teacher.
The film received the Palme d'Or
at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival
, making it the first French film to do so since 1987, when Maurice Pialat
won the award for Under the Sun of Satan
.
The camera never leaves the school. The film is set in the staff room, the playground, the dining room, the principal's office, a conference room, and the classroom where François Marin (François Bégaudeau
) is a form tutor
who teaches the French language
to a mixed group of 14- and 15-year-olds. Nothing is shown of the homes of staff and pupils.
The film concentrates on Marin as he tries to keep order in the class, mediating between conflicting ethnic groups, quieting the rowdy, bringing out the reticent, and trying to educate them. The class is difficult, and in some ways the brightest are the most disruptive. When he teaches them the complexities of French verbs
, they challenge the need to know such things, stating its limited use in modern speech. He gives them The Diary of Anne Frank to study, but none of them bothers to read it. One of the smartest pupils, the near-nihilistic
Tunisia
n teenager Esmerelda, says she can't be bothered to read books. Marin tries to get an insight into the inner workings of the pupils; they write self-portraits which describe their aspirations, hobbies and dislikes. These are eventually collated by Marin who creates an end-of-year book with them. Marin manages to win over the sparsely driven Souleymane, from Mali
, by allowing him to develop his gift for photography and make his self portrait a pictorial biography. However, Souleymayne's insolence and disobedience are his downfall as a confrontation with Marin and the class ends in an act of violence.
. Metacritic
lists Entre les murs with a rating of 94, making it one of the best reviewed films of the year according to the website.
The film was warmly reviewed by the critic Philip French
who noted: "There is a remarkable French tradition of school films, extending from Jean Vigo
's Zéro de Conduite
, to Nicolas Philibert's Etre et avoir
. Laurent Cantet
, whose parents were both teachers, carries it on and he elicits marvellous performances...As the teacher at a tough, racially mixed, inner-city school in Paris, Marin (François Bégaudeau
), neither weary cynic nor wide-eyed idealist, is a decent, determined realist..not a saint, though by the end of the school year he has exhibited certain of the necessary qualities."
The film was the featured 'opening night' selection at the 46th New York Film Festival
in 2008.
Laurent Cantet
Laurent Cantet is a French director, born on June 15, 1961 at Melle . His parents were schoolteachers in Ardilleux.On 25 May 2008, he received the Palme d'Or at the Festival de Cannes 2008, for the movie Entre les murs.- As director :...
. Its original French title is Entre les murs, which translates literally to "Between the walls". It is based on the 2006 novel of the same name
Entre les murs (novel)
Entre les Murs is a work of contemporary fiction by French writer François Bégaudeau. It is a semi-autobiographical account of Bégaudeau's experiences as a literature teacher in an inner city middle school in Paris....
by François Bégaudeau
François Bégaudeau
-Life and career:He was born in Luçon, Vendée and was first a member of the 1990s punk rock group Zabriskie Point. After receiving his degree in Literature, he taught high school in Dreux and in an inner city middle school in Paris. He published his first novel, Jouer juste in 2003...
. The novel is a semi-autobiographical
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
account of Bégaudeau's experiences as a French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and literature
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...
teacher in a middle school in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, particularly illuminating his struggles with "problem children" Esmerelda (Esmeralda Ouertani), Khoumba (Rachel Regulier), and Souleymane (Franck Keïta). The film stars Bégaudeau himself in the role of the teacher.
The film received the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival
2008 Cannes Film Festival
The 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival was held from May 14 to May 25, 2008. In addition to films selected for competition this year, major Hollywood productions such as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Kung Fu Panda had their world premieres at the festival.The British press...
, making it the first French film to do so since 1987, when Maurice Pialat
Maurice Pialat
Maurice Pialat was a French film director, screenwriter and actor noted for the rigorous and unsentimental style of his films...
won the award for Under the Sun of Satan
Under the Sun of Satan
Under the Sun of Satan is a 1987 French film directed by Maurice Pialat. It is based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Georges Bernanos, and tells the story of a devout priest who becomes involved with a murderess...
.
Plot
The film covers an academic year, beginning with the teachers gathering for the autumn term, introducing themselves to each other and being welcomed by the principal, an unsmiling figure wearing rimless glasses. It ends with an informal game of football between staff and pupils and a long hand-held shot of an empty classroom.The camera never leaves the school. The film is set in the staff room, the playground, the dining room, the principal's office, a conference room, and the classroom where François Marin (François Bégaudeau
François Bégaudeau
-Life and career:He was born in Luçon, Vendée and was first a member of the 1990s punk rock group Zabriskie Point. After receiving his degree in Literature, he taught high school in Dreux and in an inner city middle school in Paris. He published his first novel, Jouer juste in 2003...
) is a form tutor
Tutor
A tutor is a person employed in the education of others, either individually or in groups. To tutor is to perform the functions of a tutor.-Teaching assistance:...
who teaches the French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
to a mixed group of 14- and 15-year-olds. Nothing is shown of the homes of staff and pupils.
The film concentrates on Marin as he tries to keep order in the class, mediating between conflicting ethnic groups, quieting the rowdy, bringing out the reticent, and trying to educate them. The class is difficult, and in some ways the brightest are the most disruptive. When he teaches them the complexities of French verbs
French verbs
French verbs are a part of speech in French grammar. Each verb lexeme has a collection of finite and non-finite forms in its conjugation scheme....
, they challenge the need to know such things, stating its limited use in modern speech. He gives them The Diary of Anne Frank to study, but none of them bothers to read it. One of the smartest pupils, the near-nihilistic
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
n teenager Esmerelda, says she can't be bothered to read books. Marin tries to get an insight into the inner workings of the pupils; they write self-portraits which describe their aspirations, hobbies and dislikes. These are eventually collated by Marin who creates an end-of-year book with them. Marin manages to win over the sparsely driven Souleymane, from Mali
Mali
Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
, by allowing him to develop his gift for photography and make his self portrait a pictorial biography. However, Souleymayne's insolence and disobedience are his downfall as a confrontation with Marin and the class ends in an act of violence.
Cast
- Burak Ozyilmaz: Burak
- Boubacar Toure Boubacar
- Carl Nanor: Carl, student arrived during the year (after exclusion from another college)
- Esmeralda Ouertani: Esmeralda, another class representative
- Franck Keita: Souleymane, a student who enters the Disciplinary Board
- François BégaudeauFrançois Bégaudeau-Life and career:He was born in Luçon, Vendée and was first a member of the 1990s punk rock group Zabriskie Point. After receiving his degree in Literature, he taught high school in Dreux and in an inner city middle school in Paris. He published his first novel, Jouer juste in 2003...
: François Marin, a French teacher and head teacher - Jean-Michel Simonet: The main
- Louise Grinberg: Louise, the delegate class, first class
- Rachel Régulier: Khoumba, a student who refuses to read
- Vincent Robert: Hervé, the sports teacher.
Reception
The movie has received critical acclaim, achieving a 97% rating at Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
lists Entre les murs with a rating of 94, making it one of the best reviewed films of the year according to the website.
The film was warmly reviewed by the critic Philip French
Philip French
Philip French is a British film critic and former radio producer.French, the son of an insurance salesman, was educated at the direct grant Bristol Grammar School, read Law at Oxford University. and post graduate study in Journalism at Indiana University, Bloomington on a scholarship.He has been...
who noted: "There is a remarkable French tradition of school films, extending from Jean Vigo
Jean Vigo
Jean Vigo was a French film director, who helped establish poetic realism in film in the 1930s and was a posthumous influence on the French New Wave of the late 1950s and early 1960s.-Biography:...
's Zéro de Conduite
Zéro de Conduite
Zéro de conduite is a 1933 French film directed by Jean Vigo. It was first shown on 7 April 1933, and was subsequently banned in France until 15 February 1946....
, to Nicolas Philibert's Etre et avoir
Être et avoir
To Be and To Have is a 2002 French documentary film directed by Nicolas Philibert about a small rural school. It was nominated as an "Out of Competition" film at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and achieved commercial success...
. Laurent Cantet
Laurent Cantet
Laurent Cantet is a French director, born on June 15, 1961 at Melle . His parents were schoolteachers in Ardilleux.On 25 May 2008, he received the Palme d'Or at the Festival de Cannes 2008, for the movie Entre les murs.- As director :...
, whose parents were both teachers, carries it on and he elicits marvellous performances...As the teacher at a tough, racially mixed, inner-city school in Paris, Marin (François Bégaudeau
François Bégaudeau
-Life and career:He was born in Luçon, Vendée and was first a member of the 1990s punk rock group Zabriskie Point. After receiving his degree in Literature, he taught high school in Dreux and in an inner city middle school in Paris. He published his first novel, Jouer juste in 2003...
), neither weary cynic nor wide-eyed idealist, is a decent, determined realist..not a saint, though by the end of the school year he has exhibited certain of the necessary qualities."
The film was the featured 'opening night' selection at the 46th New York Film Festival
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...
in 2008.
Top ten lists
The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008.- 2nd - Dana StevensDana Stevens (critic)Dana Shawn Stevens is a movie critic at Slate magazine. She is also a regular on the magazine's weekly cultural podcast the Culture Gabfest.-Life and career:Stevens grew up in Scarsdale, New York...
, SlateSlate (magazine)Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company... - 2nd - Kenneth TuranKenneth TuranKenneth Turan is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.-Background:...
, Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
(tied with A Christmas TaleA Christmas TaleA Christmas Tale is a 2008 French comedy-drama film by Arnaud Desplechin, starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny, Melvil Poupaud, Emmanuelle Devos and Chiara Mastroianni. It tells the story of a family with strained relationships which gathers at the...
) - 2nd - Michael PhillipsMichael Phillips (critic)Michael Phillips is a film critic for the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Previously he was the drama critic of the Tribune; the Los Angeles Times; the St. Paul Pioneer Press; the San Diego Union-Tribune; and the Dallas Times Herald....
, Chicago TribuneChicago TribuneThe Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is... - 2nd - Peter Rainer, The Christian Science MonitorThe Christian Science MonitorThe Christian Science Monitor is an international newspaper published daily online, Monday to Friday, and weekly in print. It was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As of 2009, the print circulation was 67,703.The CSM is a newspaper that covers...
- 3rd - David DenbyDavid Denby (film critic)David Denby is an American journalist, best known as a film critic for The New Yorker magazine.-Background and education:Denby grew up in New York City. He received a B.A...
, The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast... - 5th - David EdelsteinDavid EdelsteinDavid Edelstein is the chief film critic for New York Magazine, as well as the film critic for NPR's Fresh Air and CBS Sunday Morning. He lives in Brooklyn, New York....
, New York magazineNew York (magazine)New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New... - 5th - Dennis Harvey, VarietyVariety (magazine)Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
- 5th - Ella TaylorElla TaylorElla Taylor is a film critic who was a staff writer for the LA Weekly and Village Voice Media, writing film and book reviews, interviews, profiles, and cultural and political commentary from 1989 to 2009, when she and much of the staff were laid off....
, LA WeeklyLA WeeklyLA Weekly is a free weekly tabloid-sized "alternative weekly" in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Editor/Publisher Jay Levin and a board of directors that included actor-producer Michael Douglas...
(tied with A Christmas TaleA Christmas TaleA Christmas Tale is a 2008 French comedy-drama film by Arnaud Desplechin, starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny, Melvil Poupaud, Emmanuelle Devos and Chiara Mastroianni. It tells the story of a family with strained relationships which gathers at the...
) - 5th - Stephanie Zacharek, SalonSalon.comSalon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
- 7th - Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader
- 7th - Robert Mondello, NPR
- 8th - Owen GleibermanOwen GleibermanOwen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix....
, Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture... - 8th - Sean Axmaker, Seattle Post-IntelligencerSeattle Post-IntelligencerThe Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...
Won
- Cannes Film FestivalCannes Film FestivalThe Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
- Palme d'OrPalme d'OrThe Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
(Laurent Cantet)
- Palme d'Or
- César Awards
- Best Writing - Adaptation (François Bégaudeau, Robin Campillo and Laurent Cantet)
- Image Awards
- Outstanding Foreign Motion Picture
- Independent Spirit AwardsIndependent Spirit AwardsThe Independent Spirit Awards , founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glass pyramids containing suspended shoestrings representing the paltry budgets of independent films. In 1986, the event was renamed the Independent Spirit...
- Best Foreign Film
- International Film Festival CinematikInternational Film Festival CinematikInternational Film Festival Cinematik is an international film festival. The 4th year was held from 11 to 15 September 2009.The organizers of the festival are non-governmental organization MFF Piešťany, o.z., backed by the City of Piešťany and Slovak Health Spa Piešťany...
- Meeting Point Europe Award
Nominated
- Academy AwardsAcademy AwardsAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
- Best Foreign Language Film
- César Awards
- Best Director (Laurent Cantet)
- Best Editing (Robin Campillo and Stephanie Leger)
- Best Film
- Best Sound (Olivier Mauvezin, Agnes Ravez and Jean-Pierre Laforce)
- Chlotrudis Awards
- Best Adapted Screenplay (François Bégaudeau, Robin Campillo and Laurent Cantet)
- European Film Awards
- Best Director (Laurent Cantet)
- Best Film
- Satellite AwardsSatellite AwardsThe Satellite Awards are an annual award given by the International Press Academy. The awards were originally known as the Golden Satellite Awards.- Film :*Best Actor – Drama*Best Actor – Musical or Comedy*Best Actress – Drama...
- Best Foreign Language Film
External links
- Realism and Debate in Entre Les Murs
- Official in Québec http://www.entrelesmurs.ca/
- Article by Radio France Internationale in English http://www.rfi.fr/anglais/actu/articles/105/article_1709.asp