Wednesday, January 06, 2010

The class / Entre les murs

the second film of the year
and another great one!

The Class - Entre les murs
will touch anybody who ever has been to a school
the teacher, the students, their relationships
the glory of an education system, and its many flaws
all portrayed so naturally that, in spite of being in French,
takes you back to the classroom of your youth

i won't say more since i am not a good reviewer
but the man who wrote this review is,
& here the trailer but as one of the comments in youtube said,
"This trailer doesn't accurately represent how truly awesome this movie is."



watch it! watch it! watch it!
you'll love it
a high-class film, superb dialogues
that were improvised in many cases
while following the plot of the book
written by François Bégaudeau
who plays himself in the film
as Mr. Marin, and just like in high school,
i am in love with the teacher

and while you watch, remember,
the young students in the film are NOT actors
they are actual students from Dolto High
a high-school in a not-so-romantic neighborhood of Paris

a last recommendation, if you watch it on DVD
do not fall into temptation of watching
the dubbed version in English...
it is much better on the original French version
with English subtitles, it's wide-screen too
so the subtitles do go over the film,
but on the horizontal black bar below

and the irony!
to think i had this DVD at home for 4 or 5 months
and never watched it before
'cause i was too busy with my CSS "class"

4 comments:

Smorg said...

Ok, I'm sold, Bere! :oD Hadn't heard of this one before, but I like French films so this will really make my evening! I finally subscribed to NetFlix and the first film I checked out was Amelie (saw it in theater when I was honing my French properly in college). They have a good selection of foreign films and even opera DVDs!

Hope 2010 has started well your way. What's with this summerly weather we're having, ay? Sometimes I wonder if the earth had flipped overnight and we are now south of the Equator...

Cheerio from NP! :oD

Georg said...

Bonjour Berenice,

You are right, a splendid movie and so true.

It is depicting a reality that generates fear among many people over here.

Some days ago, an 18 year old, Hakim, was stabbed to death in a class room. The killer is always called a "youth", you'll never hear his name on the radio or on the French TV: I had to make some Google search to find out: Islam!

There is another movie "La Haine" - the Hate - directed by a Mr. Kassovitz. It depicts the situation in one of those Parisian suburbs, kind of areas that belong only nominally to the French Republic.

Georg

Id it is said...

Thanks for the heads up Berenice; will definitely watch this one! Hope I can rent it at Blockbuster...

bereweber said...

hi dear friends, sorry for the tardiness on replies...

dear ID, yeah i hope you find it, do you have Netflix? i rented from Netflix, it's an excellent service, and i actually thought of you when i watched the film, since i know you are on the Education industry, maybe you are professor yourself?

dear herr Georg, yeah! superb film, and too sad to read on the latest school tragedy in Paris... on "La Haine" YES! i watched the film a long ago in Mexico City, a superb film too, i remember it was filmed in black & white and with an excellent soundtrack, i also remember how the 'bad' kids were only hanging out thinking it would be just another night, and how all of a sudden tragedy fell into them

dear Smorgy, yes yes, glad you have Netflix, i loooove their service adn they do have a pretty decent selection, glad you joined them too! and yes, i love French films too, i have seen a couple of Patrice Leconte films, i really like them, one of my favorite films from France is Le Mari de la coiffeuse or The Hairdresser's Husband
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Mari_de_la_coiffeuse

also, i have written with herr Georg before about Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, two wonderful French films that worth watching!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_de_Florette

cheers dear friends and hope you enjoy of more wonderful films, keep the recommendations coming too :)