Palme d’Or - Laurent Cantet’s ‘Entres Les Murs’ / ‘The Class’

“Entre les Murs” (”The Class“), based on a best-selling autobiographical novel by François Begaudeau, who plays the main character is brought alive by the performances of the non-professional actors playing the students. The film follows a year in the life of a French schoolteacher working in a tough multi-cultural section of Paris.

Sean Penn, the president of the jury, said that the award for “The Class” was one of two unanimous verdicts. The other was the prize for best actor, given to Benicio Del Toro, who played the title in Steven Soderbergh’s “Che.”

Directed and co-written by Laurent Cantet (Human Resources’, Time Out), the film is set in a school in the Parisian suburbs; indeed, with the exception of a handful of brief scenes shot in the staff room, the corridors, and the playground, the entire movie is set in one classroom, where François (François Begaudau), a French teacher of some four years standing, attempts to instill some sort of discipline and enthusiasm for learning into a motley, multicultural group of 13- and 14-year-olds. Read the rest of this entry