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alobearThe Class is a French film set in an inner-city Paris school, telling the story of one particular difficult class and its teacher's attempts to maintain control and impart useful knowledge. It's shot and acted in a very realistic style, which means it doesn't have a clear-cut plot structure, but certainly imbues it with uncomfortable familiarity for anyone who has tried to teach unruly kids. It doesn't take much to remind me how glad I am that I'm not teaching any more, and this film delivered that feeling in spades.
The Last King of Scotland started out as a very effective study of naivety and an interesting portrait of a mass-murdering despot trying to present himself as a man of the people. However, the film stretched both my credulity and sympathy for the protagonist past breaking point when he decided to sleep with one of the despot's wives after finding out that people even suspected of speaking out against the regime were being dragged off and killed. I find it difficult to believe that anyone could be that stupid, and I think the protagonist deserved pretty much everything he got after that - well, maybe not deserved per se, but he certainly couldn't claim the consequences of his actions were unexpected. I was particularly annoyed that his irresponsibility led directly to the deaths of the two nicest characters in the whole film. Excellent performances all round, though.
The Last King of Scotland started out as a very effective study of naivety and an interesting portrait of a mass-murdering despot trying to present himself as a man of the people. However, the film stretched both my credulity and sympathy for the protagonist past breaking point when he decided to sleep with one of the despot's wives after finding out that people even suspected of speaking out against the regime were being dragged off and killed. I find it difficult to believe that anyone could be that stupid, and I think the protagonist deserved pretty much everything he got after that - well, maybe not deserved per se, but he certainly couldn't claim the consequences of his actions were unexpected. I was particularly annoyed that his irresponsibility led directly to the deaths of the two nicest characters in the whole film. Excellent performances all round, though.
