THE CLASS GETS ITS CANNES CORONATION

Don’t let that pesky Eh!U alienate you. In a fall season where you can’t see the calendar for all the punnily named film festivals crowding it, Toronto’s fourth annual European Film Festival gets down to the direct business of presenting a canny cross-section of what’s current in Euro cinema. The promising lineup of 30-odd titles is drawn from 24 nations, ranging from film empires (France, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, new powerhouse Romania) as well as some less praised ports (Portugal, Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Cyprus). Here’s where we’ve been so far:

AND ALONG COME TOURISTS ***
Germany. Dir Robert Thalheim w/ Alexander Fehling, Barbara Wysocka. 85 min. Nov 22, 6pm. The Royal.
A youth (Fehling) doing his national service abroad at the Auschwitz museum is simultaneously enlisted to look after an aged and ornery Polish concentration camp survivor (Ryszard Ronczewski); mutual awkwardness and discomfort eventually yield understanding. What scans as a predictable scenario yields surprise, though that has more to do with the filmmaking choices than with the direction of the narrative. Starting with its unobtrusive realist style, And Along Come Tourists (co-written by Robert Thalheim and Hans Christian-Schmid, director of the fine 2006 drama Requiem) is brisk, nuanced and has leavening touches of humour. The script pivots on an enormous question — namely, does the public remembrance of atrocity somehow diminish it? — but its precise direction and a fine lead performance by Fehling keep things on a recognizably human scale. ADAM NAYMAN

THE CLASS *****
France. Dir Laurent Cantet w/ Francois Bégaudeau, Nassim Amrabt. 128 min. Nov 16, 4pm. Isabel Bader Theatre.
Eh!U scores a major coup by getting the chance to present the first Toronto screening of Laurent Cantet’s sterling Palme d’Or winner. (It begins its regular engagement in January.) Based on a memoir by educator and writer Francois Bégaudeau — who plays himself, and not necessarily in the most flattering fashion — The Class charts the year-long travails of a determined but flawed French teacher and his diverse, often fractious group of junior–high schoolers. Matters of race, class, work and group dynamics subtly but significantly emerge from the bustle of activity and semi-improvised classroom exchanges. Cunningly crafted and passionately humanist, Cantet’s film feels less like art and more like real life, which makes it very good art indeed. JASON ANDERSON

COLOSSAL YOUTH ****
Portugal. Dir Pedro Costa w/ Ventura, Vanda Duarte. 155 min. Nov 25, 8:30pm. Innis Town Hall.
Filmmaker Pedro Costa has spent more than a decade documenting the lives of a group of poor Cape Verdean immigrants in Lisbon. In the process, he’s created a body of extraordinary films that uncover moments of great tenderness and beauty within lives otherwise blighted by despair. Colossal Youth was the film that marked Costa’s international breakthrough when it played at Cannes in 2006. Newly relocated to a housing development, Costa regulars like the heavy-hearted Ventura and chatty ex-addict Vanda Duarte play themselves (more or less) in a series of beautifully composed scenes. Since whatever narrative exists in Colossal Youth’s 155 minutes is mostly a matter of suggestion, patience is a prerequisite — yet Costa’s world contains many marvels. JA

KATYN ****
Poland. Dir Andrzej Wajda w/ Artur Zmijewski, Maja Ostaszewska. 118 min. Nov 22, 8:30pm at The Royal.
This beautifully shot epic about Poland’s struggles during World War II focuses on the ways in which victors lay claim not only to the lives of the defeated but also to their minds. The film opens on a bridge as civilians running from German troops meet a crowd of fleeing Soviets from the opposite direction, aptly illustrating the desperation of a country caught between two invading forces. The film sticks close to four inter-connected families during and after the war, all directly affected by a massacre of POWs in the Katyn forest, an event the Germans attributed to the Soviets and that the Soviets blame on the Nazis. A moving and well-made work — though I don’t need to see anyone else shot in the head for the rest of the year. DAMIAN ROGERS