Skirt Day

Sonia Bergerac teaches literature in a suburban secondary school. She cannot get through a lesson; there is noise, threat and insult, and the administration looks away. One day a gun falls out of a student's bag. Sonia picks it up and holds on to it. From that moment the classroom is shut and the police gather outside. Her one demand: that the school declare a day on which girls may wear skirts. Jean-Paul Lilienfeld writes and directs. Isabelle Adjani plays Sonia. The film was shown first on television and then in cinemas; it appeared in the middle of the French argument about schools and the suburbs and caused a large one of its own. Isabelle Adjani won the César for best actress for the part. Adjani is the daughter of an Algerian father and gave the film's willingness to enter the argument as her reason for taking it. The narrative stays in one place and moves close to real time; the tension is built between the classroom and the police outside. Its difficulty is its thesis. While showing a teacher's helplessness the narrative compresses suburban youth into a single picture, which some critics found dangerous; the film was defended and sharply attacked in equal measure. Adjani's performance carries it; the character is played not as a hero but as someone who has collapsed. Who it is for: viewers who follow French social drama and thrillers set in one location. Who it is not for: it argues a case, some of the characters are types, and the subject is handled contentiously.