Semi-improvised, Entre les murs—literally, Between the Walls—achieves a compelling degree of documentary realism. Based on schoolroom experiences of François Bégaudeau, who also plays François Marin, the film covers a year in the life of Marin’s French class in a challenging multi-ethnic post-elementary school in Paris. It includes scenes in the classroom, teachers’ lounge, the hearing […]
Daily Archives: August 11, 2009
Atmospheric and borderline poetic, Arne Mattsson’s Vaxdockan, from Sweden, boasts a brilliant lead performance by Per Oscarsson, whom I have twice named best actor, including for his astounding performance as the starving writer in Henning Carlsen’s Hunger (1966), from Hamsun. His Lundgren in Vaxdockan pointed Oscarsson in the direction of his greatest film role. (Oscarsson […]