This is because Cantet prepared the film by selecting thousands of real students for the various parts and then going through a year-long improvisation exercise with those who made it to the final cut. Nevertheless, it requires the active participation and the INTEREST of the parents and a consensus of the scholar committees. However, I would warmly recommend it to teachers, students and parents alike, both in France and in the UK, as I believe the questions it raises are relevant to all of us. At the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, two movies were able to give viewers a vivid glimpse of the very real social context they dealt with. 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.

Marin encounters his share of problem students, teen violence, ethnic tensions between classmates and education barriers within the group, all of which test his patience and -- more importantly -- his resolve as an educator. The superb camerawork is involving but never intrusive, allowing the audience to share a sense of intimacy with the onscreen events, while the supremely sharp editing keeps the film in constant motion. While the film looks and feels like a documentary, there is a narrative at work here, which slowly reveals itself about halfway through the picture. Cantet's film is based on the eponymous book by François Bégaudeau, a former teacher who decided to inaugurate his writing career with a memoir of sorts recounting his experiences in a middle school in a Parisian suburb. Even if there are problems between the professor and his students, by the end, they are all playing football together in the playground.Compared to the sticky and stale fizzy drinks being served up in cinemas in the post-Oscar dead zone right now, this tastes like a glass of ice-cold water. And though by the end of the film, we're left wondering how education is even possible, there is a measure of hope in the realization that the system of pedagogy is generally sound, that students are generally well-meaning and capable, and that somehow many people emerge from the morass of adolescence and structured schooling as predominantly well-adjusted individuals. Bégaudeau is François Marin, a slim, boyish thirtysomething teacher of French language and literature. However, education is not just about learning the very basics to get through life, but also about opening up horizons and giving you opportunities.

Fictionalizing that Esmeralda had read Plato's Republic was idiotic, and her explanation was atrocious. But in recent weeks, as she leaves school at the end of the day, Esmeralda has been stopped by strangers in the street.Around 50 students turned up at first but many dropped out: the pupils who make up the class in the film are those who stayed the course.

In fact, the drama of the film's second half is actually instigated by his lack of professionalism, when he finally loses his temper and recklessly hurls the word pétasses towards the two girls whose behaviour had been getting under his skin. Awards Watch With 'Gomorrah' and 'Il Divo,' Italy In Spotlight at 21st European Film Award Nominat". I think the film is about showing you that you can have arguments but, at the end of the school year, a class always finishes in harmony.The film is the result of numerous improvisation exercises with a mix of real students and young actors; many of the characters' first names are the actors' first names.