The Worst Film Ever

Overrated and overhyped

Absolutely brilliant

Blistering performances.

Filmmaking in the wake of documenting a stage play with never-ending dialogue by neglecting the visuals, giving me a stretch of two-hours beyond tiresome.Nevertheless director Laurent Cantent handles a mass of youngsters and his self-fulfilling leading man, French writer/actor François Bégaudeau, well.While watching this unfortunate enough on my laptop instead in a theater, it seems that the film is not given any further exposure of what I have already been known from my own youth at a German high school.Coverage has been handled with a lack of a cinematographic enchantments in an all-too staggering hand-held documentary manner, which on one side gives me the feeling of being part of "The Class". On the other side mainly shot into the actors faces without sharing frequent physical parts as hands and feet of a desperately needed visualization of body languages.My overall feelings on the Palme D'Or Winning Picture from 2008 brings the Cannes festival's jury surrounded by actor Sean Penn, acting as president, in a tight position of just consuming a picture, in an otherwise respectively-speaking weak competition, instead of spiritual digesting it.In further doubt, the 2008 jury chose the most conservative film imaginable, benefiting a picture, which representing realities instead of interpreting, translating it into a proper cinematic vision.Furthermore the fact of being non-stop interior does not benefit "The Class", it makes the film claustrophobic, suffocating and arresting where is not really a need of showing school as a prison than a chance to live, what might have been an extraordinary cinematic experience with participations of Avantgardistic cinematographers such as Anthony Dod Mantle or Bruno Delbonnel.Here at running time marker 1h09mins30sec, the interest for the bulk of introducing characters stand still, even more with being just reduced to spectators of continuous accidents than being in demand to take a stand of controversy on current education in a self-determined so-considered civilized society.At times an Extreme-Close-Up (ECU) of pupils' hands and feet come through the editorial. But mainly Director Laurent Cantent loses himself in talking heads with shying away from essential human conflicts, how one finds his place in life or at least fight for his conviction."The Class" being an adaptation of the leading actor's novel with the same name, François Bégaudeau shares arguably no further insides of a spine, which should question of not challenge the on-going evolution on how education of constantly emerging next generation in the 21st century.So the picture originally title "Entre les murs" - between walls - concludes with a lecture on violent behavior between the educated and the educators, which stands still as anti-civilized action, putting everyone involved and participating in danger. Needless to say that mother and son get chased away, expelled from school.In comparison to an end of the 1968er student generation with the force of institutionalizing confrontations, this picture sees young adults as hopelessly sedated human beings, feelings reduced to love and being loved on pseudo-shifts; and furthermore taught to be part of a society as a single connecting wheel of a gigantic money-ordering clockwork machinery.In 2017, the time when I am reviewing "The Class" declares a whole generation (born between 1981 and 1997) on brakes, close to stagnation with no emotional evolution towards what came before.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

In some respects this is Etre et Avoir both urbanized and upgraded from ecole to lycee; at yet another remove it's a latter-day Blackboard Jungle inasmuch as both titles feature multi-racial inner city schools where the pupils are more or less killing time before becoming old enough to leave. Evan Hunter based his novel on his own experience as a teacher at a vocational school in New York but he stopped short there, unlike the author of Between The Walls who not only penned a semi-autobiographical novel but adapted it for the screen and then played the lead who is, of course, more or less himself. Strangely enough there is less violence here (2008) than there was in Blackboard Jungle in 1955 which could, of course, be taken as an encouraging sign.The kids and the teaching staff are also real and the twelve month rehearsal period results in a documentary which has been polished to fictional standards. Definitely worth a look.

You find yourself in a room. It is a bland, generic classroom, filled with rowdy French school kids. What an ordeal! Surprisingly, this movie is acclaimed as a great French movie, winning a Palme d'Or, which is one of a movie's highest honors. If you want to watch a movie which is slow moving and reminds you of everything you hate most about school, this movie is perfect! Entre les Murs is a dramatic movie, which was considered quite masterful at the French film festival in Cannes. Directed by Laurent Cantet, this movie won a Palme d'Or. Originally, Entre les Murs was a book written by François Bégaudeau, who is the lead actor in the movie, playing Mr. Marin. Eventually, the book was turned into a movie in 2008. The story is about a conflict between a determined French teacher with four years of experience and his students, who cause trouble in his class, and are determined not to learn. The movie is set in a small middle school on the outskirts of Paris, where the children are all too eager to avoid learning of any kind. Although they respect the school's principal, this diverse group of troubled kids disrespect the teachers on a daily basis, until it gets to the point where it is nearly impossible to control. During the movie, the viewer witnesses parent –teacher meetings, heated arguments between teachers and students, recess, and teacher conferences. The teacher of "the class" is a man named Mr. Marin, who initially appears to demand respect, and uses discipline to set a limit. Later, however, he completely loses control of an already dangerous group of students, and when things get hairy, Mr. Marin finds that even his reputation may be damaged. He is also brought to a rude awakening with the fact that teacher-student interactions are never one way. The beginning of this movie is slow, and never seems to speed up. As it is so eloquently put in the British TV series Doctor Who, "Is this how time normally passes? Really slowly. In the right order." This definitely would describe how it feels to watch Entre les Murs, since it so realistically portrays a classroom that it literally feels like you are being forced to go learn in French class with a strict teacher. As it sounds, it is not very enjoyable. To me, one of the main ideas of this movie is discipline, and the consequences of disciplining somebody. When any of the students in the movie are disrespectful, as they often were, they would be disciplined in regard to their misbehavior. Throughout the school year, however, this seemed to cause worse problems than forgiveness or a nicer punishment would. It seems that in order to be able to punish the students, the teachers must first develop a respectful relationship with them which does not involve friendship or fear, just understanding. In Entre les Murs, this is perhaps the hardest thing for the teachers to master, which is very different from my high school, where all of the teachers understand their students' views. Although they know the content, they don't care in the slightest about any of their students. Sure, they care about their grades, but they do not inquire into their personal life at all, nor do they look into alternate ways of improving these grades other than punishment. Mr. Marin is a relatively new teacher at this middle school, and sheds light on what may be the answer to this problem. I would only recommend this movie to people who can handle the whining complaints of others, or people who would understand the deeper meaning. If someone doesn't understand any deeper meaning in this movie, it is rather dull to watch, with no definite climax or resolution. Although I'm sure the book was much better than the movie, the movie does portray one thing which is pretty accurate: It uses the real students as its actors. The students whine a lot in the movie, so obviously someone must be pretty patient to even deal with actors such as these. Overall, I liked this movie, though I wouldn't watch it again. The character's personalities came through, and you could definitely tell how annoying they must've been in class. If I were to watch this movie on my own, I probably would've seen how slow it was, and switched to a different one. But, as it is, I was in my own French class watching this, so I could report back to you. I honestly don't know why this movie earned a Palme d'Or. Even though it was semi-interesting, it did not strike me as the best movie I have ever watched, and I think it would do better as a documentary. After all, movies are meant to entertain! However, this movie did show us American kids how schools are in France, and I liked that. Also, I can relate to this movie, as some of the characters look a lot like some kids I go to school with. Watch this movie if you have a lot of time and patience, but otherwise, I wouldn't bother with it.

In watching The Class I was struck by its intelligence. The direction taken upon social and cultural issues within dialogue broke the figurative forth wall allowing individual interpretation and enhancement of character development. You can immerse yourself in the classroom through The Class' documentary style cinematography travelling around and between Francois and his students. This intimacy and contextualisation of The Class resulted in a rewarding experience.Based upon Francois Begaudeau's semi-autobiographical of the same name, Begaudeau himself plays the lead role as an inner city teacher dealing with troublesome kids. Begaudeau portraying himself in an episode of his life made the narrative more appealing for me as The Class had a strong sense of realism. Though Begaudeau didn't simply stand in front of the camera to make his presence known. He emoted the hopes and frustrations of a teacher attempting to provide for students. His acting abilities were equally matched by those playing the students, not one faulted in conveying their personalities and problems.In dealing with these issues at hand the actors were helped by an exceptional script. Large portions of The Class is set within Francois' classroom debating social and cultural issues, from the use of language to a generation's moral standards. All issues were debated with openness allowing audiences to be a part of the discussion thus interpreting your own take which for me felt satisfying.The Class highly deserved multiple awards it later received from Palme d'Or to the Cesar Award as its' a noteworthy, refreshing film for those seeking cinematic sophistication.