Graduate First

Final-year students in a mining town in northern France. There is no work in the region, the factories are closing and the teachers tell them to pass the exam. The students do not know what to do: one wants to go to Paris, one is getting married, one goes on sitting in the café. The exam arrives and afterwards nothing changes. The subject is not education but everyone knowing that the qualification will open no door. The teachers know it too and repeat the same sentence anyway; the film presents that emptiness as fatigue rather than anger. The form is close to documentary. Maurice Pialat cast most of the parts from actual local school students; the dialogue rests on improvisation and the scenes run long without cuts. The camera waits in the classroom, the café and the street. The method is Pialat's known way of working. He was famous for rewriting on set and for friction with his performers, and some of the naturalness here comes out of that friction. Sabine Haudepin and Philippe Marlaud are in the cast. Who it is for: viewers who like French social realism and portraits of the young. Who it is not for: anyone expecting narrative; the film builds no story and resolves none of its characters.