France has had a banner year for films in 2008, but so much for strong films like, “A Secret,” “Tell No One,” “A Girl Cut in Two,” or Philippe Claudel’s “I’ve Loved You So Long” (one we haven’t seen yet, but one receiving stellar reviews), cause France has officially selected Laurent Cantet’s “Entre Les Murs,” (“The Class”) as its official Foreign Oscar entry for ’08.
That’s not a bad thing. We just saw “The Class,” earlier this week and we loved it. It’s an impressive and dynamically charged piece of work. And since the film did win the Palme d’Or at Cannes, already, it’s probably not a bad bet for France to put all its eggs in one basket. Last year France was in a similar good problem predicament when they had to choose between “Persepolis” and “La Vie en Rose.” They chose the animated former film, but then the Oscar committee, implausibly cut it from the running during the early stages. ‘Rose’ obviously earned Marion Cotillard a Best Oscar Actress award though, so it wasn’t all for not.