Class Act


I saw two films today that I'd like to write about. The first is Entre Les Murs or The Class, the french film that won at the Cannes last year. I had read so much about it, and heard so much, that it was a real treat watching it finally!

Education. Students. Teachers. The system. We like to stick it to the man starting from a young age. It was very interesting to see both sides of the system in close interaction here and to realise that sometimes students are liable to question their teacher's authority and not, how teachers exercise so much patience with young minds and lose it with them as well. I tried to look at those students and spot myself as a character there. I tried to cast back to my schooldays to find out if I was rebellious or understanding of authority. None actually. I just wanted to learn, ignore teachers that I didn't understand, and go with the flow. Maybe children have evolved. Or was I passive?


The second film, is the 2003 Canadian documentary, The Corporation. I liked it a lot, loved it....it has extensive research and we get to hear a good balance of either sides, the owners of big corporations in the U.S and thinkers/activists who consider them to be new-age psychopaths. Which makes me link my observations of Entre Les Murs with The Corporation - "The system's got too much control". There is a part of the documentary that films a public discussion in a small town of America that is opposing the entry of corporation chains to set-up base in their town. I was struck when a woman says, "So, we'll figure it out what we can do apart from jobs in this sector. We are creative people."
Narrator: "Some of the best creative minds are employed to assure our faith in the corporate world view. They seduce us with beguiling illusions. Designed to divert our minds and manufacture our consent."


So are we passive?