REVIEW:The Class

The Class is a documentary-style fictional film about one year in the life of a teacher and his class of 14 and 15 year-olds in an immigrant community in Paris. It received a lot of buzz because it featured the real-life teacher who wrote the book on which the film was based, the kids were not trained actors, it won a top prize at Cannes and it was nominated for an Oscar. And so I was excited to see it, but I had a visceral reaction by the time the credits were rolling.
[Serious spoilers ahead.]
One of the key storylines in the film concerns a boy named Souleyman who is an immigrant from Mali. His character was portrayed as sort of a class-clown, troublemaker. He’s bright and has potential, but simply is not doing the things he needs to do, like bringing his materials to class and doing his homework. We encounter his mother who, because she can’t read, speak or understand French, and relies on her children to translate, is not getting the message that her son is not doing well in school. Things come to a head one day when the teacher insults two girls in the class and Souleyman gets angry, curses at the teacher and storms out of the room without permission. One of the students advises that if Souleyman is expelled, it is likely that his father will send him back to Africa. [It seems in France, they kick "troubled" students out of one school and just shuffle them off to a different school.] So we watch the teacher go back and forth with himself and other teachers over the moral dilemma in moving foreward with a disciplinary hearing that will almost certainly result in expulsion and the outlying consequence of the boy being sent back to Africa. After we watch this tortured “what do I do-what do I do” self-serving reflection, boy is expelled.

When I left the theater, the only thing I could think as an overarching message of this film was that black boys are expendable. And the more I thought about the film on the drive home, the angrier I became as I thought over some of the racist and anti-immigrant sentiment that seemed to permeate the characterizations of the students. For example, one teacher rants and raves about how all the students are “animals” and how they are unappreciative of the benevolent [white]teachers who have come to deliver them out their squalor. The boys, Arab, African, Carribbean, only become interested or engaged when they debate soccer. The girls, particularly a black girl named Rhoumba, are only portrayed as “insolent” and silly. Of course, the Chinese immigrant child is the smartest and most ideal, his only problem is that his mother faces deportation for being undocumented.

So at the end of the school year, the teacher asks everyone what they have learned and they give various responses. The bell rings and the students leave for summer break, except for one black girl who tells the teacher she did not learn anything. The teacher tries to console her and alay her fears about being forced to go to vocational school, but she’s insistent that she’s learned nothing and he has nothing to say. [Oh, you didn't learn anything? Oops, my bad. Sucks to be you.] And that’s basically the end of the film.

So what? Immigrant and children of color, except Asians, can’t be taught? They can’t be engaged at any level to learn anything? They should expelled for saying f*&@! you to the teacher?

To say I did not like this movie would be an understatement. I’m glad it did not win an Oscar.

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