Entre les murs - French winner at Cannes finally hits the big screen

Wednesday is the day of the week when new films open here in France, and among those on general release today is this year's Cannes film festival winner, "Entre les Murs" (The Class).

There was a great hullaballoo when the film unexpectedly won the Palme d'Or back in May - after all it was the first time in 21 years that a French film had scooped top honours.

And it won fulsome praise from the jury president, US actor Sean Penn, who called it "amazing" and had from the outset of the festival insisted that it was impossible to separate film from politics, and had promised that the winner would be a reflection of the current climate.

Most who either saw the film in Cannes or have been treated to special screenings since would agree wholeheartedly that "Entre les murs" is just that.

By today's budget-busting standards it's a small film - it cost less than €3 million to make - and over the 2 hours and 10 minutes follows a year in the lives of a class and their teacher in a tough inner city secondary school in Paris.

Director Laurent Cantet's film is a mix of documentary and fiction written by, and starring François Bégaudeau – himself a former teacher – with most of the other roles being filled by real students and teachers.

Actually we're pretty luck to have the film this early. It wasn't officially due to be released until October 15 but the distributors brought the date forward apparently because it was scheduled to hit some foreign cinemas - in particular in Italy - at some point this month and it would have looked plain daft, according to the film's producers, if France had dragged its feet.

Oh yes and there's another rumour doing the rounds. Entre les Murs is reportedly being considered among the shortlist of films which France wants to put forward for next year's Oscar nominations in the best foreign language film category. To be able to qualify, a film needs to have been released before September 30.

It'll be tough for the film to have the same sort of commercial success as the home produced comedy Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis earlier this year, which broke all box office records to become France's biggest grossing domestic production ever.

But Cantet's movie has already received a lot of critical acclaim and although it's primarily aimed at adults, the French minister of culture, Christine Albanel, has recommended that it be shown in all secondary schools throughout the country.

If you're interested in France and life here, and especially what makes much of today's youth tick, then this is definitely a film to go and see. And as with any good film, it doesn't just tell a tale that's restricted to the setting in which it's made - doubtless that's why it won top prize at Cannes, which is after all a showcase for international cinema.

It's packed with universal themes that will probably resonate in many other countries - race, truth, individual relations, social problems - and there is of course much, much more to say about it. But that would be giving away too much in a review, which should never be the case.

Perhaps though two very different approaches to how the film has been described by others that have seen it will also provide a taster. First up there's the national daily Le Monde, which says the workings of a classroom are a puzzle to those removed from the system but the film sheds light on that mystery using direct experience in the form of fiction.

"Initially it appears as a series of scenarios which don't necessarily appear connected, but as the film progresses their relevance becomes apparent and they flow to increase the dramatic intensity," runs a perhaps rather convoluted professional assessment of the film.

And then there are the amateur reviews and perhaps proof of how "Entres les murs" is likely to go down certainly here in France and probably abroad, coming in the form of the reactions of some 13-14 year olds in the western city of Nantes.

They were treated to a screening of the film a day ahead of its general release and their comments reported in this morning's edition of the regional daily "Ouest France"

And they summed up what they felt in a way the jury back in Cannes probably couldn't have put better.

"My father was beginning to have doubts about what classroom life was like," says one.

"I would say it's a bit exaggerated, but it's also a pretty good reflection of what we're like," says a second.

And perhaps most tellingly for the film's likely success from another, "Parents should go and see it. That'll help them understand us."