The Class

Set entirely in a secondary school in a working-class district of Paris, where most residents are first-generation immigrants to France born overseas, the film follows the year of a young teacher, François Marin, and the 25 pupils aged 14-15 years whom he takes for an hour each day for French lessons. A loner, he walks the narrow line between maintaining discipline and gaining co-operation. From the start, wide differences are apparent in the class over standards of dress, deportment, knowledge, and application. A dispute arises over using the imperfect and pluperfect subjunctive, which he admits may be a bit of an affectation and a student questions whether François is gay. When pupils have to read aloud from The Diary of Anne Frank, a girl called Khoumba refuses because she does not consider it relevant to her life. In private, François forces her to apologise. Success comes when he asks the pupils to write a self-portrait. An assertive girl called Esmeralda reveals that she would like to be a policewoman or failing that, a rapper. A difficult boy called Souleymane, weak in written French, submits his story in an interesting series of photographs (at a parents' evening, his mother cannot speak French at all). However, after an argument over football teams with Will, another boy who is problematic, Souleymane insults François and is sent to the head teacher's office. At a teachers' conference to decide final placings, François defends Souleymane but his efforts are undermined by the two student representatives at the meeting, Esmeralda and Louise, who behave in a childish manner. During the next class, despite the confidential nature of the teachers' conference, the two girls tell the others that François had it in for Souleymane. A furious François rebukes the pair, saying they behaved like "skanks" (French: pétasses). Uproar follows, in which Souleymane, after accidentally hitting Khoumba with his backpack, storms out and is suspended. Later, Khoumba pulls aside François, telling him that if Souleymane is expelled, his father may send him back to his native country, Mali, as punishment. After a disciplinary hearing at which Souleymane is supported by his mother, for whom he has to translate, he is expelled. In the last lesson of the year, François asks each pupil what they have learned over the year. Carl has been inspired by science experiments in his chemistry class, Khoumba has warmed to music and enjoyed learning Spanish, Esmerelda professes to have learned nothing in school but then admits that she has read Plato's Republic in her free time. After they have all left the room, a quiet girl called Henriette comes back and claims that she really has not learned anything at all. Outside, an impromptu football match has begun between the pupils and teachers.

Plot from The Class (2008 film)CC BY-SA 4.0