The Class

An extremely difficult and artful film, The Class depicts a year in the life of a ninth-grade classroom in a low-rent part of Paris. The actors who play the students are surprisingly natural, and they look like human beings, which really sets them apart from the beauty-borgs you see in American teen dramas. The film, though, is relentlessly tense, thanks to claustrophobic close-ups, cross-talk and a combative attitude from both the students and the teachers. The classroom feels as though it’s constantly on the edge of an explosion, not unlike a real ninth-grade classroom. Toward the end, there is a bit of blow-up, but it’s not as bad as the buildup implied, so a residual tension drifts through the remainder of the film until, in a devastating final scene, one girl who hadn’t spoken before gives away the grim secret of schooling. On the whole, The Class is tough to watch, but impressive in its construction.