French director Laurent Cantet is interested in the human condition, and the fragility of relationships. His latest movie — the winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, and a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee — aims to capture both the tumult of the adolescent educational experience and, more esoterically, the binding power yet forever extant vagaries and separations of language. Born of a collaboration with novelist/teacher Francois Bégaudeau and a group of teenage non-actors, The Class is a quietly observed drama about one year at a high school in a tough neighborhood (Bégaudeau plays the teacher) in which clashing cultures and attitudes — a microcosm of contemporary urban life — slowly reveal societal fissures. In advance of its wide release, I recently spoke with Cantet about the film’s English language title change, its evocation of multiple social divides, and how France trusts its teenagers more than America. For the full interview chat, from New York Magazine‘s Vulture, click here.