When Marco and I were in Cannes, I was vehemently against seeing “the classroom movie.” In my mind, all teacher classroom films are the same, and never do anything interesting. Dangerous Minds, Freedom Writers, Half Nelson, Sister Act II, the list goes on. Also, many of the films that we had already seen in the festival were underwhelming despite interesting premises. Not that I feel bad for skipping this, since I got to see it for free anyway, but I do have to admit that it is much better than I thought it would be, and I think it is the best film to win the Palme D’or since Elephant won it (though if Synecdoche, New York had taken it, it would have been the best Palme D’or winner since Paris, Texas (no joke)).
The film is ultimately about the precariousness of people between the ages of 13 and 15. One gets the sense that one wrong step with any student and it will destruct his entire future. I know that I am an incredibly different person, in every way, from who I was in middle school. And I can remember specific incidences which initiated particular changes in my personality and my outlook on my life. And I sometimes grimace and shudder to think of what I would be like had that particular incident not taken place.
When a struggling student enters into a conflict, and the teacher is in a point blank position to react in a way that will either devastate the student or redeem him, I can absolutely relate to, and be engrossed by, the pressure that is on the teacher at almost all times. Most of Entre les Murs appears to be a fly-on-the-wall account of the goings on of a French middle school French class, but certain plot points disrupt the flow, and toward the end one particular troublemaking student becomes the focus, and a decision has to be made that will either begin his maturation into an adult, or cripple him into a hopelessly bleak prospect, the stakes get so high that it was somewhat difficult to watch.
Other films in the genre attempt all of this, though, so all of this could be just a “so what?” But there are other interesting things going on, formally. The film is acted by Francois Begaudeau, who wrote the book that the film is based on, which is an autobiography about his own teaching experiences. And the students are real, too. It is one of the most striking life imitating art imitating life projects that I have heard of, making all of the drama all the more real and consequential.