jm10701 I agree with most other reviewers in liking this movie, but I disagree with almost everything they say about it. First of all, it is not hard to follow, nor is it at all hard to tell what is real and what is not. The plot is actually fairly simple, and warning that it is so complex that you have to watch it twice and answer half a dozen or more convoluted questions before you get it is absurd.It's also absurd to imply that you have to understand Freudian psychobabble to understand this movie. I don't know why people think they have to make a movie sound so hard to watch when it is not hard to watch at all.I also disagree that this is a sad, solemn movie, and that there's no humor in it. The humor is dark humor (very dark), but there's a good bit of it, as when Nicolas imagines making out with the teacher and when the hooded terrorists swarm over the school mowing everybody down with machine guns while Nicolas calmly eats food the other kids have left behind in panic. Even the scars the camera zooms in on so often and Nic's father's antics and horror stories about organ pirates are funny. It's macabre, but it's very funny.And the twist at the end? What twist? The end was obvious almost from the beginning of the movie. This is a movie, not a psychology test or an inscrutable riddle or even much of a thriller. It's a very smart, very dark comedy about children and crazy parents. In trying to over-analyze it, people miss its fun. Lighten up and enjoy it.

Rodrigo Amaro 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

dbdumonteil Simply ,"la classe de neige" is Claude Miller's best work since "la meilleure façon de marcher" (1975,his debut).These works comprise intriguing similarities: both take place in a children community.The first movie,which featured the excellent Patrick Bouchitey and Patrick Dewaere,focused on two camp counselors ,and the dark side of their minds .Bouchitey's devils only woke up at night ,when he dressed up as a woman.His relationship with Dewaere was frighteningly intense and culminated in a violent scene in which the transvestite forced his pal to dance.Miller's sophomore effort "dites-lui que je l'aime" tackled deviancy again but he cheapened Patricia Highsmith's first-class thriller.Since,Miller made quite entertaining works ("garde à vue" which was remade as "under suspicion" ),endearing ones ("l'effrontée") ,and also pretentious ones ("mortelle randonnée" which was remade too).But he was never again able to equal his sensational first work,which seems as strong as it was a quarter of century ago.But in 1998,he really outdid himself,and gave a stunning work ,the first to be on a par with "la meilleure façon de marcher".Should you give another title to "la classe de neige'" ,it could be " cries and whispers" .The title is incredibly trite "skiing with the school" and reveals none of the horrors the movie depicts.Nicolas is a perturbed child probably because he's poisoned with protection by an omnipresent father;but it's not that much simple: the scene at the swimming pool shows another side of this monstrous daddy.The parents ' gathering before the class leaves for the mountains is realist to the core:I organized myself a lot of "classes de neige" and I can say I've met a lot of parents who fret about their dear little ones .Sometimes they refuse to sever the umbilical cord and the child -most of the time very disappointed- stays home.Whispers:Nicolas lives in his own world where his demons never leaves him alone.His only moments of peace occur when he confides to his teacher,Miss Grimm (what a name!)-see how he refuses to talk to his mother on the phone -,or to the young man to whom he says :"when you think too hard about something,does IT happen"?,scary ,isn't it?).He finds a pal but the secrets he exchanges with him are so morbid and so terrifying it cannot bring him any help.Most of the time,the adults whisper behind closed doors,the gendarmes outside the bus,the teachers in their office.Cries:we never see Nicolas scream, or even cry.His mind creates monsters ,at night when his nightmares come to visit him -these scenes make the audience think of an horror movie,which Claude Miller's work is not.He managed to blend dream and reality in such a subtle way that it's sometimes hard to tell them apart;take the central scene which climaxes the movie:Nicholas is out in the cold ,the snow's falling,and he cannot open the house's door.Then begins a series of dreams which show a child's fear of dying as never before.In the daylight,terrors do not fade away:Nicolas turns the TV screen into a mirror of his own horrible visions-this is not as strong as the nightmares scenes ,though,since this device has been used before-.Claude Miller does not do what the audience expects:a Hollywoodian treatment would have solved the problems ,with a family happy again and plenty of violins in the background.There's an extremely moving scene :on the highway,in the restaurant ,the boy sees a young mom change her baby's diaper,then the proud couple leaves the place,as Nicolas' s eyes catch what happiness may look like.The ending will leave you completely numb:you are in front of a huge hole ,you do not know exactly what happened .It's perhaps even worse than you think it is.A black fairy tale revisited by Bruno Bettelheim,a psychological drama, a thriller,"la classe de neige" is all this and so much more.Emmanuel Carrière's eponymous book is highly recommended.

mifunesamurai Not another coming of age film! It is but with the sinister twist of Claude Miller in control of poor boy Nicholas and his hang-ups. This is a fascinating entry into the mind of a young boy who is going through the motions of adjusting to life while on a school camp. There are certain elements surrounding him that make it that little bit complicated for our hero. And if you can relate to it, (like I did and now I'm a bit worried about it), then you will truly understand the boy's plight.