Class Rules

What Kurt Vonnegut Jr. said of the high school experience—that it’s “closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of”—is hardly limited to the United States. In countries across East Asia, particularly, filmmakers have depicted the classroom as a microcosm of society at large: a pressure cooker, an oft-demoralizing preparation course for the rigid hierarchies of adulthood, and a place where lifelong memories (and traumas) are forged. Bringing together films by Kenji Fukasaku (Battle Royale), Nobuhiko Obayashi (School in the Crosshairs), Kim Bora (House of Hummingbird), and Lawrence Lau (Spacked Out), this program is an education in the more insidious aspects of education.