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Class Trip
Class Trip Cannes award-winning journey through a young man’s mind
B ased on a novel by Emmanuel Carrère, French director Claude (An Impudent Girl, l’Accompagnatrice, Garde a Vue) Miller’s latest film is the powerful story of a fragile, disturbed youngster whose life is marked by painful memo-
ries and terrifying fantasies.
On a school ski trip to the Alps, Nicolas (Clement Van Den Bergh), somewhat set apart from other children, embarks on a strange adven- ture. In this gripping, psychological tale, reality proves to be even more traumatic than his worst nightmare. Class Trip (La Classe de Neige) co- stars Lokman Nalcakan, Francois Roy, Yves
Verhoeven and Emmanuelle Bercot.
Joint winner of the Special Jury prize at
Cannes ‘98, the film once again deals with one of Claude Miller’s favourite subjects - childhood. Stylistically, according to the director, it veers between a realistic narrative and unrealistic flights of imagination.
Explains Miller, a one-time assistant to Bresson, Demy, Godard and Truffaut: “What’s good and bad about film is that you always have to rush things. You have to deal with problems right there and then. We first of all decided to treat everything in the real past in black and white and the hallucination scenes in hyper-saturated colours. The present-tense story, however, was to be filmed without any particular effects. I shot and even edited the film according to this principle.
“And then, rightly or wrongly, I changed my mind. It seemed to me that these processes were heavy-handed and over-sophisticated. I decided that the use of black and white was of no help whatsoever. If the audience is slightly confused, if the transitions into the dream and fantasy sequences are not always apparent at first, it’s per- haps not such a bad thing.” ■
Photographed by Guillaume Schiffman on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative, Class Trip is currently on selected release in the UK
Photos: Scenes from Class Trip
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