Entre les Murs

Compelling movie. I knew nothing about it when I went. I loved the documentary feel of it, the absence of music (save the poignant offstage Schubert during the parents' evening, a telling counterpoint to the dialogue). I loved the ambiguity of the teacher's role. He is idealistic but an insensitive loudmouth. He fucks up. He compromises himself with the disciplinary board, and even before that he is faking good in his account of the run-up to Suleiman's disastrous outburst. The earlier grading meeting is similarly compromised by the vested interests of the student representatives: a lovely piece of symmetry. I loved the vitality of the kids, all the more so thinking that this was largely improvised.

And I loved the subtitles. Someone had thought about them. At one point, a pupil has to conjugate "croire", so the subtitler went for an equivalent irregular verb rather than a straight translation, and had a lot of fun with "swim". It kept all the fun of the mistakes, and wouldn't have mattered a bit to anyone who doesn't know French, but flattered anyone who does.

I despaired of the bureaucracy. Of the low expectations. Of the student representatives on the grading committee, even though they are bright girls. Of the slovenliness. Should it matter that a teacher goes to school in t-shirt, jeans and trainers? Hmf, in my young day teachers wore suits, or at least sports jackets and flannels or cavalry twills. They certainly wore a tie. And Mr Brown wore a linen jacket in the summer term, and a panama hat. The past is another country.

Danger

The book is due out in April.