In 1987 France won the Palme d’Or with Under the Sun of Satan by Maurice Pialat, the story of a possessed priest set in 1926 rural France. Twenty-one years later Laurent Cantet has just repeated the feat with his film Entre les Murs (The Class). Between those two Palme d’Ors is a world apart.
In a masterly stroke of programming Cantet’s film was left to the last day of the festival. Jury members, film critics and festival-goers at large, exhausted and eager to go home, weren’t expecting anything special from a film added to the official selection at the last minute. Yet, in just a few opening scenes, we were gripped, all nationalities alike. The dramatic premises are so simple they are universal and touched us all to the core.
It’s the month of September, teachers old and new gather for a new school year. We’re in Paris, in the 20th district, a multicultural and authentic part of the French capital where Parisians of all social and ethnic origins live in relative harmony. Experienced teachers, going through name listings, warn the newcomers about the pupils: ‘Him, nice; her, nice; him, oh, not nice; him, not nice at all; her, nice …”, and so on. It looks as if things are not going to be so easy after all.
Thirty-something Francois teaches French and he likes his work. We, the audience, are going to be spending a whole academic year with him and his 14-year-old learners. For two hours we’ll stay within the walls (literally entre les murs) of the classroom. Entre les Murs is a tête-à-tête between France and its educational system. It might also be seen as the trial of France by its aspiring citizens.
But how to reconcile the inherent contradictions of the French system: not to exclude yet be firm, to recognise diversities yet teach one culture. Cantet and Francois Begaudeau don’t shy away from exposing the system’s flaws. They do it with subtlety, through impressionist touches, revealing anecdotes and judging no one.
The audience is left with Francois trying every day to engage in a conversation with youngsters who are in turn unruly, moody, clever, plain vicious, hard-working, impudent, violent even. Cantet’s pupils are Rousseau’s bons sauvages. Teaching them the past subjunctive becomes a Herculean task and a confrontation between old and new France; helping them to express themselves becomes a struggle of Dantesque proportions, in which the fear of revealing too much of one’s roots leads to clashes with the teacher’s authority; interesting them in literature turns into an Olympian achievement. In the process the question of identity comes back again and again.
For two hours the audience’s emotions run high. These 14-year-olds make you cringe when they try to exploit their teacher, or make you reach for the whip when they are lashing out insult after insult. They make you laugh to tears when they outwit one another or leave you in awe when their intelligence suddenly strikes like lightning. They also make you want to cry when one says she is ashamed of being French.
Francois and his colleagues also get us to the edge of our seats. At times we wish they were stricter, less complacent, but in the end they get our boundless admiration for trying, sometimes failing, but at least always trying their hardest to build the 21st-century Republique. —