Class Trip (1998)

Sorry, this movie sucks

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Our subconscious world's still a scientific mystery and sometimes we think we have some answers to our dreams, and our nightmares but we don't. Psychiatrists and psychoanalysts may give some unsatisfactory answers to what we dream in our sleep but that's not enough. We really want to know why strange and bizarre thoughts appears out of the blue. Many claim that the real life problems is solved better (or not) in our dreams, or even say that our lives frustrations appears frequently in our dreams and with that you might get some answer to solve or battle against yourself dealing or not dealing with the problem. And then we have the nightmares, something that leave you with fear, sometimes real fear, sometimes is just silly things created in our brain. But there are nightmares that disturbs at the point that we don't even want to sleep again fearing that something bad is gonna happen. "La Classe DE Neige" (or "Class Trip") is all about dreams, nightmares, dreams capes and dangerous thoughts that may become reality.Nicolas (Clément van den Bergh) is a 12 year-old and extremely shy boy that is sent to a Class Trip in the France country side. His father (François Roy) doesn't allow him to go to the trip in the same bus where the other boys go fearing an accident because something similar happened a few days earlier. Nicolas is almost silent, and the other kids don't tend to like him very much (you might remember of Louis Malle's "Au Revoir Mon infants") because it's his first time in that camp and he's not too much sociable. To make things worst he forgot to take his suitcase with his clothes and his pajamas out of the car's trunk. He desperately need his pajamas because he wets his bed during the sleep. But a good soul borrows a pajama to him, a boy named Hodkann (Lokman Nalcakan) and they become friends. Now we get to the serious part of this drama with horror undertones. Nicolas have several nightmares and not only sleeping, sometimes he has some flashes of terrible happenings just looking to some person or watching the news on TV. His nightmares are very awkward, almost all of them related to his father, whether him suffering an car accident or Nicholas being keep apart from his dad while playing at the park. To help him during these hard times Nicolas got the support of the teachers (played by Yves Verhoeven and Emmanuelle Bercot) and Hodkann, who seems interested in all the things that happen with Nicolas. One day after locked himself out of the camp house (he lied to his teachers saying that he's sleep-walker) Nicolas tells Hodkann what's happening saying that his father is a detective investigating the kidnap of children that has their organs removed. After the disappearance of a kid of the area things starting to look different for the two friends and nothing is what it appears to be. Writer and Director Claude Miller made a great film here but something could be more developed, more mystery could be added and the ending doesn't explain the nightmares, and not even if some of the Nicolas thoughts were real or not. For instance, when the teacher is making a relaxing exercise Nicolas is the only tense kid in the room. He's thinking that his father are throwing him in a pool over and over again. That scene is never explained if he's cruel father did that to him or if it's just another dream. Another thing that bothered me was the flashback during a moment with Nicolas, his brother and his father in a park. First, we see the moment and then cut to Nicolas in the camp. Then that scene backs again but it moves forward. Totally unnecessary, the flashback is no needed and that scene could be showed in just one single take. And we have the strange dreams that Nicolas have while awake. This was very good, it give suspense and weirdness to the movie but their appearances doesn't explain a single thing and leaves the audience with questions that might sound useless to the story. Why he kissed the female teacher in that way after knowing that his father died in the dream? Is Nicolas a gay boy? (there's a few undertones here: in his dreams Hodkann appears behind him in the roller-coaster, smiling while Nicolas father is kidnapped; and in his first nightmare, look the way the hands touches when Nicolas saves Hodkann from the terrorists). Anyway, I got the feeling that this movie pointed in so many directions and in the end the mystery was not much interesting, doesn't have a big plot twist. But it's a great movie. The boy that plays Nicolas has a incredible performance. He made of Nicolas a unique character, very original not only in its terrifying nightmares but in the quiet moments too (his conversation with the teacher about the Little Mermaid is one the best scenes of the movie). It's an very original work, I was surprised at some moments thinking that it would be another movie similar to "La Spinaza del Diablo" but it was very different, a little inferior to Del Toro's work. It wasn't focused in the relationship between all the kids and/or they being cruel to Nicolas because he's a little different of the other kids, something that doesn't happen in Americans film. It didn't need to show cruel acts towards a kid, it followed in other way, showing that friendship is possible between different people and different behavior.Enjoy the mystery, the story and the great credit opening that resembles "Frantic" directed by Roman Polanski. 9/10

Most definitely one of the best movies I've ever seen, a bit on the strange side sometimes, but a very moving film. camera work excellent, the acting is amazing, and very well directed. not a well known movie, but a very good one.

This film is very exciting, touching, and beautiful. It belongs to one of my most favorite coming-of-age film. There are many reasons why I love this film so much. One of them is the terrific talents of Clement van den Bergh and Emmanuelle Bercot. I think it is very hard to play the leading role in this film. Nicolas is deeply troubled inside, and the actor has to keep it hidden inside to make it convincing why the kid has a lot of bizarre daydreams and nightmares. Though he has a sad face, he must not make his feelings too obvious. The actor has to make us understand that Nicolas cries for help all the time, but not by his voice or obvious expression, but by something hidden under his expression, something hidden in his eyes, and by his imagination. I think Clement van den Bergh is really successful in this difficult role.Bercot is also excellent. She does not portray a stereotyped teacher. She really makes this role her own by expressing feelings and emotions of vulnerable human, and that makes this teacher a real person, not only a character. I was quite impressed with her talent in the latter part of the movie after the news of the crime starts spreading.The story is really moving, especially when it deals with the growing friendship of the two boys, and the rollercoaster scene is strongly intriguing. More importantly, the atmosphere created in this film is excellent, and owes a lot to the superb cinematography, the haunting musical score, the appropriate location, and the rhythm of the story. The vast landscape is beautifully captured by the camera, and cleverly used to mirror the psychological aspect of the character. Each nightmarish scene is intense, and the scene when the boy is frozen to death keeps haunting me for a long time. This is one of the films which must be shown on the big screen so that its beautiful atmosphere can be appreciated fully; however, it has been shown in Thailand only once.This film does not only excel at creating the atmosphere, but also at creating the excitement. While seeing it, I couldn't guess what would happen next. I couldn't guess if the story would turn out to be one of those children films in which everybody understands one another at the end, or if it would belong to a serial-killer genre. Sometimes I couldn't guess if the scene was just a dream or reality. The ending, though quite brutal to the feelings of the characters, is done in a surprisingly delicate manner. This film should be viewed together with Festen, which partly deals with the same subject matter but uses totally different approach. Yet I think both films are similarly effective in their own ways.Though I can't say this film is innovative, original, or significant to the history of cinema, at least this film is really significant for me, judging by its tremendous impact on my feelings. Though this film deals a lot with painful experiences, I have to say I really enjoy the trip through this film. This trip is greatly rewarding.

This is an investigation of the journey into puberty for the young Nicolas set in the clear, fresh surroundings of the French Alps. The casting is as well crafted as the direction, performances and music; as soon as we see him we know that Nicolas is a shy, sensitive boy and that such physical and psychological changes which happen at his time of life will have melancholy and confusing effect. This is portrayed finely.The sub-plot, I believe, is the murder and its outcome, the conclusion of which sums up Nicolas's history.Cinematographically, the effect is as cool and crisp as the alpine air itself as is the choice of music. We are led in to the mind of Nicolas through the music and the elegant flashback, nightmare and daydream sequences some of which verge on the intensity of the Hitchcock-Dali connection.This is a film of opposites; the new-found friendship between the shy Nicolas and the class rebel and between both of these boys and the sympathetic teachers. We grow to know and like all of these characters.Isn't it true that the character of a nation can be seen in its children. This could only be a French film; it is realist, humanist.