How is power and conflict conveyed in 'The Class'?

I will begin by pointing out and exploring a factor where power and conflict are obvious on-screen - through the creation of characters. Already in the classroom we can see a wide range of races brought together into one compressed space. Students are African, Asian, Latino and White, amongst other races. A social divide is clearly obvious and, thanks to director Laurent Cantent's decision to film documentary-style shots from the inside of the class-room, I feel as if I am sitting in the class myself. The tension has made it's way from the screen and connected with me. Also, the decision to include no non-digetic sound at these points enhances the power of the classroom setting - it is raw. Anything can be heard, and when it is, questions and judgment can be fired from any direction. The focus is purely on what will happen in this small space.

For nearly the entirety of the film, we see nothing of the outside world. The only thing we see are the grounds of the school, be it the classroom, the staffroom or the playground. Whenever we see the characters, it is always within the school. We hear about their lives outside, but never actually see them for ourselves. With this in mind, I found myself split between two decisions: one would be to care little for the moans and groans of the students. For example, Souleymane, from Mali, is said to have 'issues' at home and a problem with temper which, during one scene where he leaves the classroom in a fit a of rage, is clear, but what isn't clear is what 'issue' at home would have provoked this. Other students explain that he is on a final warning to be sent back to Mali permanently, which poses the question as to why he would let himself react so violently in the first place. Something visual of his life outside of the school would aid in providing reasons for their rage and sympathy from me (much like in Richard LaGravenese's 'Freedom Writers'). On the other hand, we can simply imagine their home-lives. the Dialogue is descriptive enough to make me question as to what happens outside of the school. I am curious and eager to know more about these characters.

During an early scene in the staffroom, we learn that some of the teachers are so familiar with the students that they feel they can pigeonhole them. One of them lists all of the students as either being 'nice' or 'not nice', which signified that they felt not a trace of hope for those labeled 'not nice'. They know that there is no point in trying to educate them, and the fact that this has become a familiar tactic for the teachers, I find, is very disheartening. At the same time, however, this presents the form of power that the teachers in the school have - the power of experience, not just of teaching, but of the world that they live in. Because of this, a generation gap is clearly put in place. François Bégaudeau, our leading teacher who's autobiography provides a backdrop for the film's action, experiences this gap. He comments that two girls were behaving like 'skanks', to which they took much offence, thinking that he was calling them prostitutes. The issue grows quickly and surrounds Bégaudeau which shows that, despite sharing the same the language, the developments of generations has led to different interpretations of the most basic sentences. He confronts the two girls with the issue in the playground, and the low-angle shots at this point are extremely effective, drawing attention to every word that is said between them. Bégaudeau can fight for his cause, he can justify and defend his choice of wording and why he used it. But at the end of the day, it is one thirty-something against half a dozen teenagers, who all share a taste of slang. He is alone, and cannot find external, supportive justice. Times have changed.

The playground itself, when seen on-screen, is shot from a high-angle, looking down on the children playing their games, conversing or so be it, as if they were animals in the wild. Fights break out at unpredictable moments, enhancing the feel that this is their natural habitat. However, we, as an audience, cannot get involved. We can only watch, just like a documentary on television, that is all that it is. We observe who is dominant and we see who is week. We see what territory belongs to who, which, in a documentary, clearly presents who the power belongs to. The only thing missing is the commentary. There are rare occasions when we get a closer view of this location, and one of them I have mentioned above. When this happens, I feel as if I have to be weary of any comment or action made. Because of what we have seen from a birdseye view, we know the dangers that the area presents, and to be in this presence is daring of the director.

Creative project outline

For my creative project, I have chosen to write a screenplay based at a music festival. In an attempt to re-create the festival atmosphere, I will be using my own experience to shape the location description and sound, as well as an extent of the dialogue. I have chosen to do this as recently, I have felt that too many music festivals are being attended by punters so that they can get what they think is 'the festival experience' as seen on broadcasts by the BBC, where they present live coverage and highlights from the likes of the Glastonbury, T in the Park and Isle of Weight Festivals. These programmes, I feel, show nothing more to the viewer than snippets of audience members having 'fun' (i.e. bopping along to bands on-stage) and the presenters deal with incidents, such as lateness, casually, revealing no nature of the actually atmosphere in front of the stage. For example, at 2010's Reading Festival, headline act Guns'n'Roses took to the stage an hour late, during this time thousands of punters began booing, shouting and chanting a number of foul language soaked comments. Does the BBC chose to broadcast this? No.

Coming back to my point about people attending festivals for the wrong reasons, I used this thought to create my central characters, Gary, Andy, Will and Dave. Gary is a festival novice, while Andy, Will and Dave have a few years worth of festival experiences under their belts. Here, I found the opportunity to add elements of comedy to my screenplay. E4's hit comedy series 'The Inbetweeners' was an ideal influence for my novice character as I based him on the show's Will McKenzie, a character who easily loses his temper when something does not go as he has planned it to (series 3, episode 6, in particular). With this in mind, I hope to create a character who's dialogue and actions trigger comic applause form an audience, while at the same time presenting a teenager having a miserable time. He does not enjoy the atmosphere of the festival campsite (loud chants throughout the nights, burglary from tents, heavy fires, the toilets, mud ect. - again based on my own personal experience of festivals) and thought it would be something quite different, as shown by the BBC's coverage of festivals in the past.

Another influence on this project will be Kevin Smith's 1994 debut film, 'Clerks'. This is because of it's tagline - 'Just because they serve you...doesn't mean they like you.' To me, this suggests that customers in any form of shop think nothing more of the people who served them than, well, the people who served them. Little do they know, however, is what the shop assistants are really thinking and what really goes on while no customers are around. While my screenplay will not be set in a shop, the subtext of this tagline will have a heavy impact on my screenplay. As I mentioned above, broadcasters such as the BBC present little of what actually takes place at a music festival, so my idea is to present the truth, based on my own experiences, once more. A day in the life of a festival goer, more or less.

Hows does 'Persepolis' represent politcal and social messages?

Because of the film’s graphic novel-based style, some of the scenes appear comic on-screen, which I find, to be worrying. I say this as one scene depicts a group of young children, led by Marjane, chasing a boy down a road with nails and chains in hand, shouting ‘poke his eyes out’, after hearing about a series of torture methods that Mjarjane’s uncle experienced in prison. This represents how easily children can be influenced by what adults have to say. I don’t think it would have mattered if young Marjane understood why that was happening to her uncle or not: It is the action that is provoked upon hearing this story that is important to pay attention to Does. Her uncle was placed in prison in the first place because of his decision to take action for something he felt strongly about (he decided to express his favours towards communism) and because the government didn’t like it, they put him in prison, expressing a corrupt scheme of government because he is being locked away for expressing his viewpoint.

Another thing that I noticed while watching this film was the large disrespect towards females. The story takes place over three decades, and this horrible and offensive attitude towards women remains the same throughout. Just before the film’s episodic transition occurs to take us into 1983, a man viciously comments that he takes women and ‘bang them like whores’. What this viewpoint represents is that some men of the decade strongly felt that women were no more than objects: there are many of them to go around so it is no problem if one goes missing: this man can find just another ‘whore’ anytime he wants. Even a decade later, in 1992, where Marjane arrives back from Vienna, she is told by on-street officers to wear her headscalf correctly: it is as everything has a correct place to be, and that variety is prohibited. The soldiers themselves all appear identical to each other, wearing the colours and same generic shape of body that suggests they have fallen to a dictatorship. Even more worryingly, some of the soldiers are very young (one was around the age of 16) which shows how much of an impact the Islamic fundamentalist government had had on the shape of society. However, Marjane is not afraid to take this issue into her own hands, and in one scene, during a school assembly addressing students of how to wear their uniforms (another victim of the new government’s ways), she confidently expresses her rejection to the idea of making women’s dresses appear shorter, while there was already an issue of women’s clothing appearing too short and skimpy. They have been drive to a losing state of field and she has the guts to speak against it.

As I have just mentioned above, a new police force consisting of the Iranian society was put in place by the new government, attracting a number of young men. There is one scene in particular where I think editing was used in order to represent the tension they create among the people around them. Alcohol had been outlawed during the start of there reign over Iran, and during a party, the cross-cutting sequence between the soldiers charging towards the apartment and the nature of the party really show how hard the government wanted to clamp-down on all wrong-doers. It appears on-screen as such a heavy tension builder, showing one state as a jolly atmosphere, where no one has a care in the world about what is happening outside (the party) and the corrupt authorities pacing rapidly towards a problem that they feel can only be delt with in an aggressive sense of attitude. In the end, they are able to drive one the attendees to death (he attempts to shift from roof to roof but misjudges his jump and falls) and they didn’t even have to shoot him down. This character I sympathise with heavily - he simply had no other way of escaping the problem at hand, created by this restrictive government.

As I have already mentioned, the film’s graphic novel style is what is most striking about the messages and themes addressed in this film. Political corruption, animated expressionism on faces and the influence upon children all occasionally appear comic at stages in the film, and what is worrying about this is that these are seriously relevant issues to today’s society that need addressing. I see this as a wake-up call, as by presenting these horrifying issues in this style, maybe audiences will take notice about what is happening in the Eastern world. Because the graphic novel obviously appeals a lot more to what is happening elsewhere in the world to the typical Westerner, maybe by sharing a story in this fashion will make the whole issue a lot clearer.

Comments on 'Persepolis'

'Persepolis' tells the story of Marjane Satapri, an Iranian women, and spans three decades. Conflict is present throughout the story, from the protests against the Shan of Iran (which her family are heavily involved in) and the Iran-Iraq war, to later fighting for her own beliefs during a university assembly. What is most striking, but obvious, is the use of graphic-novel style used to prevent this imagery. As a viewer, I was tricked into noticing some comic moments. I say tricked as a high volume of these images really should not have been found comic, including Marjane and a group of young children chasing a boy with a nails in their hands so they can 'poke his eyes out' after hearing of torture methods that Marjane's uncle experienced in prison (it shows how easily influenced children can be) and the desperation to hide alcohol after almost being raided by Iranian soldiers. Maybe this is why, however, that the filmmaker has decided to use this graphic novel style (the film itself is based on a graphic novel). These are serious issues that need to be addressed, so what better way to present it to a Western audience by showing it in a way that they at first think would be 'comic'?

The style of the narrative is quite episodic. An adult Marjane reflects on her past growing up during the revolution in Iran, and this presented when the years 1978, 1982 and 1992 appear alone on-screen, accompanied by either digetic music or Marjane's voice-over. Each year is soaked with political, religious and cultural influence, presented by clothing (the constant wearing of the Veil by Marjane and her friends in Iran), Marjane's constant conversing with a God-like figure as a child, showing her distaste for her loved ones being tortured and killed, and, most strikingly, the introduction of Western culture, and how it is seen by the Iranian soldiers and Nuns as something truly horrific. It is as if it has an illegal drug-like presence, and it can only be found with figures cloaked and shaded up, as if they are hiding something a lot worse (to Westerners, that is), aiding to present the conflict between East and West. Despite all of the aggressive matter directed towards young Marjane, she seeks comfort in her Grandmother, a figure who is certainly powerful in ensuring Marjane that identity is most important thing on earth, in a gentle fashion. The influence, however, appears lost when Marjane is sent to Vienna, Austria in an aid to protect her from the crumbling society of Iran. She has had a taste of Western culture, but now she engulfs herself in it, experiencing sex and relationships, all of which, lead to disappointment. Conflict eventually drives Marjane to homelessness, and a taste of serious illness enforces her to return to her Eastern roots.

Back in Iran, Marjane is able to share her opinion with confidence and fight for female equality during an assembly, presenting that she is in charge of her own identity after all. Her Grandma's influence cannot be forgotten. She has taken an influence and made it her own.