The Class

Laurent Cantet’s wildly diverse oeuvre takes another turn with this absorbing improvised docu-drama revolving around teacher-pupil relationships in a school classroom and shot using real teachers and students from a Paris school over the course of a school year. The film focuses tightly on the dynamics and concerns of the classroom, never straying into details of the lives of kids or adults outside. Yet even though it takes place entirely ”entre les murs”, it offers a rich microcosm of today’s multi-ethnic French population and fascinating insights into the complicated dilemmas and misunderstandings which teaching – and indeed learning – can entail.
– MIKE GOODRIDGE, SCREEN INTERNATIONAL

After all the sprawling, intangible strivings we’d experienced during the week, Laurent Cantet’s The Class (Entre les murs) wowed us with its clarity, simplicity and emotional power. – – The experience of watching the fi lm is so electrifying, satisfying and inspiring that it’s hard to believe it isn’t the work of professional weavers at the top of their trade. It has the tang of authenticity and a brilliant cast of natural talents who ought to have won some kind of collective prize. Though the classroom is still a site of tragedy and conflict in the film, these actors make it seem less like a prison and more like the launch pad it ought to be.
– NICK JAMES, SIGHT & SOUND