The Martlet

Ask Hollywood what happens in high school and you’d think it was all just a mix of  gang violence and spontaneous dance-offs. But The Class, set in the rough inner city of Paris, brings teenage drama down to earth.

Much of the film follows a group of multi-ethnic students, unenthusiastic about their French-language homeroom class and the teacher who tries to sell them on the merits of learning the imperfect subjunctive (that is, when they give him a chance to speak).

Class lessons are frequently interrupted by students eager to correct and question their teacher on everything from the length of the class to his sexual orientation, or to challenge their fellow classmates whenever they answer a question. And while the well-meaning teacher can usually keep his cool, usually doesn’t mean always.

Over the course of two hours, the movie plays through an entire school year, and the teens, like all teens, have their ups and downs — which we see discussed by teachers in the staffroom and in meetings. But The Class does not have a hero.

Filmed in French with English subtitles, The Class is based on the 2006 novel Entre les Murs (“Between the Walls”) written by the film’s star, François Bégaudeau, about his own years teaching in Paris. In a sense, Bégaudeau is playing himself.

The students in the film are real students of the school where the movie was set, and the script was developed out of their improvisations of classroom situations.

What results is possibly the most realistic film about high school ever made. But don’t expect a fast-paced drama. The patient viewer will get a portrait of a truly troubled school and a teacher who tries to make the best of the situation.

The Class is French director Laurent Cantet’s fifth feature-length film. It won the Palme d’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, and has been nominated for an Oscar in this year’s Best Foreign Language Film category.

The Class opens Feb. 13 at the Odeon in Victoria.