10 points, I watched this movie ten years later. I watched it at the right time. If it were ten years ago, I would have concluded that I still did not have the ability to appreciate this movie. This is one of the rare films that has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and perhaps there will not be such a similar work for many years. It is unique and profound enough for the audience to reflect after the film.
Based on the original novel "Between The Walls" by François Bégaudeau, the author of the novel himself also starred in the film, bringing to the screen a previous experience of teaching French in a public school in Paris.
François Bégaudeau worked with director Laurent Cantet to reshape the original novel into a two-hour window. All the characters in the film are real students, and it is very commendable that these students are not afraid of the camera, and their performances are real and natural, without rigid dialogue, and without being deliberately delicate.
The audience can clearly see that this is a class of mixed immigrant descendants of various skin colors, and can also see that each middle school student has a different sense of identity with his own "nation" and as "French". The obvious references in the film are Algerian, Moroccan, Chinese, Malian, Portuguese, Ivorian, Antillean. Students from different cultural backgrounds take French lessons and learn the grammar of the puzzling subjunctive future perfect in French.
France, the 2018 World Cup champion, is known as the victory of immigrant football. More than half of the players are descendants of African immigrants, which is absolutely inseparable from the inclusiveness of multi-ethnic cultures in French society. From this class, we can also see that the students retain their own national culture, but they also have a common French characteristic - freedom and democracy.
Chinese audiences are amazed by the free speech, self-expression, and classless environment in this class, not to mention the casual dress and behavior. Of course, this freedom and individuality is only one aspect of European public schools, but whether in London, Berlin, Paris or Moscow, most of the students in public schools are from the working class, and public schools in poor areas have a free and loose atmosphere. It became the reason why European elites sneered at public schools. (European private schools are more like the meritocracy we are used to)
Audiences may wonder why this class is so rebellious? Why are you so disobedient?
The main points of conflict are the teachers who want to tame the students and the middle school students who are at the peak of their rebellious spirit. Adults who are content with the status quo in the system always try their best to drive adolescent middle school students into the system, hoping that they will become part of the system as soon as possible. Adults in the system can’t wait to frame students with labels.
Those of us who have come out of the Chinese education system will naturally classify students like Xiaowei who are obedient and study hard as "good students", while those who do not obey, do not obey the rules, and cannot be quiet are classified as "good students". The class is "bad students". But is it absolute that the criteria for distinguishing students from good and bad are based on this? If students who meet the standards within the system are good students, are students outside the system bad students, and do they lose the chance to be recognized?
François is a stubborn, hard-to-please, and obsessive language teacher. From a subjective point of view, he does not seem like other teachers. He sometimes thinks from the perspective of students, and he is trying hard to push students to know themselves and learn knowledge.
The climax of the film occurs when François, provoked by the students, loses control of his emotions and makes outrageous remarks to the two female students, Khoumba and Esmeralda. This mistake is caught in their hands and becomes a handle that almost causes the entire class to overturn the teacher. status.
And Souleymane, a Malian student who was judged by the teacher as "no help", was provoked and angrily left the classroom because he learned the teacher's true evaluation of him and the teacher's inappropriate remarks to the students in class. Another schoolgirl, Khoumba, was hurt by her schoolbag. Multiple violations of school rules resulted in the student being expelled from the Disciplinary Committee.
Khoumba, who was accidentally injured, did not blame her, but thought about the problem from Souleymane's point of view, believing that it was because the teacher's inappropriate remarks to her angered Souleymane, which triggered a series of emotional out-of-control consequences.
The teacher, François, was not punished for his inappropriate remarks to the female student for his emotional outburst, and even the other teachers understood it. The student Souleymane was also emotionally out of control and violated the school rules. I can't measure the extent of the damage caused by the actions of the two, but I don't think the two should be the result of such an imbalanced treatment. Why is the behavior of a teacher who is regarded as a moral icon and a student who is being educated, the results of the mistakes of the two are not the same?
But the movie doesn't criticize right or wrong.
The movie ends in the last class before the school's summer break. Souleymane's expulsion seems to be a thing of the past. We don't know if Souleymane has been driven back to Mali, and everyone seems to be worried about it. The last empty scene is an empty classroom, and the students outside the window are noisy.
This film can resonate in any country, especially audiences who have had similar experiences during their student days. This institutional education model is generalized, and we rarely see schools that pay attention to "bad students outside the system". ”, or at least try to understand why they are outside the system.
The movie is great, the angle of cut is sharp, the expressiveness of the camera and the actors is real, the characters exude a strong personal charm, each character is not thin, but the seemingly ordinary story is unexpectedly heavy. The twists and turns of the story are smooth and the audience can enjoy them effortlessly.
I watched this movie ten years later, and I watched it at the right time. If it were ten years ago, I would have concluded that I still did not have the ability to appreciate this movie. This is one of the rare films that has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and perhaps there will not be such a similar work for many years. It is unique and profound enough for the audience to reflect after the film.
The details that the movie does not say clearly can make us think about:
The handicraft teacher throws a tantrum in the staff's office, scolding these students for being a bunch of bastards, teaching these students is really painful, and even shouting that he doesn't want to do it, but until the end of the video, we still see him in the staff's office ; The boy Arthur, who had to defend his gothic dress in class, wanted to declare that he wanted a unique freedom, and was asked by François, are you really free when you dress like this? Are you not as unique as any other goth outfit? ; there is Burak, a student who does not want to enter a private school even though his grades are good enough; Lousie and Esmeralda, who are class representatives, will stand up against the authority in the face of teachers' unfair evaluation; each teacher in the faculty office always holds a different attitude. view of the problem.
Education is a big subject, and there is no simple template that can be applied to every student. Everyone has the right to obtain education, regardless of whether there is any kind of education. If in modern society, students’ opportunities for education are still measured by the standards within the system, I think this is an oversight of the education system, and it is also our responsibility as adults.
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