School Life

A secondary school in Saint-Denis, north of Paris. Samia is a newly posted deputy head who has to learn the school's rules, its pupils and her own limits at once. What works is that it proposes no solution. The teachers are exhausted, the building is inadequate, the system is broken and nobody can fix it alone. Daily life continues anyway: a fight in the corridor, a disciplinary hearing, a pupil looking for work experience, a confiscated phone. Yanis, the pupil at the centre, is clever and at odds with school; the film presents him neither as a case to be rescued nor as a child already lost. Grand Corps Malade and Mehdi Idir directed. Grand Corps Malade is a well-known slam poet in France; the pair's first film was Patients in 2017. It drew far more attention in France than expected: over 1.8 million admissions and the top of the box office in its opening week. A warm, funny choice for anyone who likes French banlieue films and school stories. For a viewer expecting harshness, the film tries to get its conflicts through the day rather than resolve them.