“The Class” Redux

Dean — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:24:32 +0000

Since I am displeased with the review I wrote for the 2008 French film, The Class (or Entre les Murs), I wish to supplant it with the following:

During the Aughts, Laurence Cantet adapted a French novel titled Entre les Murs for the screen. Called in the United States The Class, it’s a gem of a picture, set in a Paris inner-city school, which has no faith whatsoever in multiculturalism and very little in urban public education. The novel was written by the schoolteacher, Francois Begaudeau, who plays the lead role–that of schoolteacher Francois Marin–in this film. Though dedicated, Marin is not nearly as effectual as a pedagogue should be: the school is a multiracial semi-horror. There is constant disrespect and constant egalitarian sensibility. Absurdity involving meetings and student representatives paves the way for Marin’s losing his temper and telling two misbehaving girls, the student reps, that they behave like “skanks.” He never apologizes.

The movie invites us to wonder just what kind of country France will be in the future. The liberalism underlying multiculturalism seems unsustainable. Yes, you can get a student expelled from Marin’s school, but can you get a satisfactory education re-admitted?

Cover of The Class (Entre Les Murs)

Kids These Days, With Their Telekinesis: “Chronicle” – A Movie Review

Dean — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:31:37 +0000

Obviously there are severe limitations in the Paranormal Activity-videocam mode of moviemaking, and I wish never to see a picture made in this mode again. In Chronicle (2012), however, for all the severe limitations, it’s fairly free of hokiness.

Written by Max Landis, the son of John, and directed by Josh Trank, the film centers on three teens who unexpectedly receive a talent for moving things with their minds–telekinesis–and proceed to have a lot of fun with it. The top dog with this power is Andrew (Dane DeHaan), a friendless boy with a horrid home life, who nevertheless decides to stick a camcorder in other people’s faces (whether he knows them or not) and who finds it offensive that his nice cousin used to consider Andrew hard to talk to. Presented without pathos, the lad becomes desperate and hostile. Telekinesis gets very dangerous; it’s now a weapon.

The film avoids all blandness and predictability, and is somewhat more than a middlebrow indie curio. Like so many other entertainment movies these days, it finally exhibits way too much destruction and mayhem, but it’s not without smarts and thrills. It’s recommendable–more so, I think, than Paranormal Activity.

Now, no more camcorders.

Image via Wikipedia

The Hip Opinion

“The Class” Redux

Kids These Days, With Their Telekinesis: “Chronicle” – A Movie Review