Customer Reviews

Class Trip

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

La Classe de neige (CLASS TRIP) is terrifying little film that sweeps the viewer into a world so altered by a child's viewpoint that finding the story is a detective game - and a fine one at that! Director Claude Miller adapted Emmanuel Carrère's novella by the same name and out of this tale of 'everyday macabre' he has created a horror film that stands along with 'Diabolique' as pinnacles of French cinema.

Nicolas (Clément van den Bergh) is young, enuretic son of overbearing parents (Father François Roy and mother Tina Sportolaro) who is denied the companionship of his classmates on a bus trip to a ski resort by the father's insistence on driving him in his car. Nicolas is a loner, a child who has many phobias, and who (we learn) has been exposed to many 'strange' situations. His father is a traveling saleman of prostheses, samples of which he keeps in his trunk. This arrogant father has at times been abusive, and at time coldly hostile, but he is the only person with whom Nicolas can relate.

Once at camp Nicolas discovers his father departed before unloading Nicolas' suitcase. The kindly school teachers Miss Grimm (think of the fairy tales!) Emmanuelle Bercot and Patrick (Yves Verhoeven) help Nicolas adjust and the class ruffian Hodkann (Lokman Nalcakan) not only loans him pajamas but befriends Nicolas in other ways. Nicolas confides to Hodkann his father's strange occupation and soon the two exchange many stories that intertwine. When a child near the ski resort is found dead, rumors abound about bizarre men who kidnap young children in order to remove their organs for the transplant black market. Nicolas has nightmares which include invaders to the class trip, memories of his father, prostheses becoming body parts, etc and one night as he tries to correct the results of his bedwetting, he gazes out the window at the first snow, walks into the snow locking himself out, and is discovered the next day in Patrick's car (yet another source of future nightmares).

Nicolas and Hodkann bond and attempt to solve the mystery of the dead child and this adventure leads to some terrifying events - and we never know which of the tales is true and which is the product of Nicolas' fragile, twisted mind. Suffice it to say that the ending is disturbing and leaves the viewer with the fear to turn out the lights!

The cast is superb, the musical score as composed by Henri Texier with a lot of help from movements from the Rossini 'Petite Messe Solennelle', and the cinematography by Guillaume Schiffman is extraordinary, moving smoothly and frighteningly between imagined incidents and reality. This is a fine study of the fragile and fractured mind of a child and the elements that are both the etiology and the sequelae to delusional thinking. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, August 05

"Class Trip" ("La classe de neige") is a psychological thriller about fourteen-year old Nicolas (very well played by Clement van den Bergh), sent to a school in the French Alps. Although his teachers are supportive, Nicolas is withdrawn. He gradually develops a friendship with fellow student Hodkann (played by Lokman Nalcakan). Nicolas seems consumed with shocking memories, or are they wild fantasies? Artificial limbs, children abducted for organ harvesting, paramilitary attacks on the school, freezing to death in a car, his own funeral, missing children, hostile fathers, and monkey paws granting wishes all make appearances. Nicolas quietly tells Hodkann and some others parts of the story. What is true and what is not? What to do about it? The suspense builds quite masterfully to a satisfying conclusion.

While this film seems to be marketed as a gay film, it is really a thriller. Nicolas may have a mild crush on Hodkann, but it doesn't go further than that. The two skin scenes are not gratuitous and are tasteful.

The acting (especially by van den Bergh), the interesting screenplay, and the fine cinematography all make this a suspenseful psychological thriller.

The confusion this film seems to have brought about in some of the reviewers here becomes less so on second viewing, I found, which makes me think that it could be followed easily enough the first time if one was looking in the right way ... It takes a while to get used to the mixture of dream, flashback and daydream which give the film its unsettling but highly vivid quality. The overall effect is quite compelling, regardless of plot details. The psychology of the main character is projected with great control through the extraordinary, almost visionary sequences, and the young actor's restraint works very well, surely, rather in the way Louis Malle achieved in 'Au Revoir Les Enfants' - his expressions give a sense of a great deal being held back, which is very true to his age and character type. It also forms a contrast with the often violent or bloody events depicted. He is both damaged by his upbringing and looking for tenderness to make everything better, both in the form of a mother figure and a pubescent gay feeling towards the much more extravert Hodkann. The dream he has in the middle of the film is surely a wet dream which he doesn't understand but feels in some vague way is something to feel guilty about, as with everything else. This opens onto the most extraordinary scene in the night in the snow, where he goes out - all shot in blue tones in the mountain silence - magical! The relationship between the two boys seems to revisit a theme Claude Miller explored in the 70s in 'La meilleure facon de marcher' - another brilliant look at sexual feelings of a gay sort at a holiday camp, but there it was between the young men organising it whereas here the characters are much younger. As others have said, the music is also brilliant, right from the opening shot of an ordinary motorway where we suddenly hear a trumpet rasp like the sound of a braying elephant. And the Rossini is so atmospheric and startling ... all in all, it is hard to decide whether the film is more sinister or sad, but a strange beauty is there in spite of the awfulness and the plight of Nicolas remains haunting long after the film has ended.

there are already specific reviews, and it is hard to be specific on this item. the movie is confusing, enjoyable, french, and good to buy and then donate to a public library.

Nicholas is an insecure child plagued by visions of disasters and horrible accidents. In his dreams he sees his father in a car crash, his brother is abducted and his own classmates are shot by men in white masks. His peers tease him and his teachers are frustrated by his lack of social skills. Nicolas disconnects from the world around him, inhabiting his own friendless, nightmarish realm. On a class trip to the ski country, the class bully befriends him and becomes intrigued by his dreams. As the line between reality and hallucination blurs, Nicolas?s visions begin to come true. When police find a dead child in the woods, murdered and mutilated, Nicolas knows there is a connection between this crime and his visions, and with his friend?s help he sets out to fine it. There is no nudity in this movie.

I gave this film one star for the interesting soundtrack and another star because I would feel badly having to give this no stars. The film is billed as a Horror film but in reality it is a psychological thriller and not a very good one. A young lad is taken to his class trip by his father to join the rest of his classmates in the French Alps. The kid is troubled to say the least, he wets the bed or so we are led to believe, and he has these very odd dreams. His father leaves him off forgetting to leave his suitcase. Without his own clothing and having to borrow another kid's PJ's he is left to his innermost fears. His dreams MIGHT be predictions of what is going to happen notice the word MIGHT.
There is an eerie soundtrack and some pretty good acting but this film goes nowhere fast. I am fond of French Cinema and have watched quite a bit both in French with and without English subtitles. This film is not helped by the subtitles and it is just as bad without them. If a film has a good plot I am game. If a film has a mediocre plot I can still deal with it as long as the other elements are strong enough to carry the film like great acting and good character development. Unfortunately, this film is so disjointed that even with some good acting and an eerie score it simply leaves me with nothing.
I think our main character wets the bed because he is scared of how I am going to review this film. I realize that developing a character for a small boy is a tall order. The kid is really good at blank stares. The film reminds me of one of my least favorite American films of all time "DONDI" where the kid has one big line and does the same line over and over again I can't remember the whole line but it always ends with "GI BUDDY". The kid in this film always has this cold stare. He uses this stare in just about every scene after awhile I just grew so bored with this kid that I hoped he would stop having these dreams and go to sleep so I would not have to see him staring into space another time. The editing of the film is also problematic. There are always Police about and Police in this boy's dreams at some points we do not know if what we are seeing is Real or a Dream. Are these police part of the film and why does everyone always whisper in these films. Does the writer really think that kids can't guess that an adult is hiding something? I liked the acting of the two teachers in the film. I grew to find that the had some talent but due to a poor script they were limited as to how much they could add to this project. Those who felt that this is a great film must be deprived of great film or dreaming themselves and merely thinking they saw this one. If you don't believe me, go ahead and buy this, but remember I told you so...SG

La Classe de Neige is supposed to be a Picture This production, however, Warner Bros. comes out in the credits in the beginning of the movie. This is one very strange movie reminding me of something out the French Impressionism period.

I don't even know where to begin to describe this plot as reality and fantasy becomes one, making everything surreal and difficult to understand. I am not even sure what the story is about but it surrounds one boy, Nicolas, who is brought by his father to a kid's winter camp. Nicolas suffers from delusional, detached psychological disorder, always dreaming these surreal, altered states in which he is in danger. There seems to be hints of him being sexually abused by his father who is also mentally unstable. He wets the bed due to these nightmares.

Because it isn't to clear to me, we can assumed that Nicolas has been seriously traumatized in life. He thinks that there is a conspiracy by a group of people who go around sequestering young boys for body parts. He thinks that his father is working undercover to exposed these people. He makes friends with another boy at the camp, Hodkann. They develop a strong friendship and Nicolas tell him about this weird conspiracy. There is one episode in which one of this triggered nightmares causes Nicolas to wondered outside in the cold and the snow, he almost freezes to death. He becomes very sick. At the same time, a boy disappears in the general area, the police is searching everywhere. Ski trips are disrupted from the camp, staff becomes upset. There is a description of a vehicle near where the boy disappears, and fits Nicolas's father. The father gets caught by the police on a tip by Hodkann. At the end Nicolas leaves the camp and goes home while watching on a newsreel in the TV about his father being apprehended by the law.

This is a very strange movie. There is bizarre, and then there is this movie. Unless you are to prepare to witness something totally different and hard to understand, don't bother, because you will not like it.