Life Classes (1988) User Reviews

An intriguing, disappointingly seen film

[TylerHauser · 8/10 · 27 September 2006]

While it meanders in places, Life Classes certainly deserves better than the film festivals-> awards-> disappearance fate it received. It serves as a contemporary Forrest Gump of the Art School world where the heroine manages to discover a relevance through the contemporary (1987 Performance) art scene.

While it is a deliberately paced piece, it allows the viewer to wallow in the kind of empty life so many poorly payed single mothers endure for the welfare of their children. Yet the message of the piece remains one of optimism in the ability of art to transform an empty life into one of meaning.

Hopefully the forthcoming DVD garners it some attention.

Emmigrate from Canada? I think not!

[FilmicGreg · 6/10 · 21 January 2005]

I saw this movie in my Canadian Film Class at Carleton U. and didn't really mind it. Yes, it can be kind of boring in relation to the classical Hollywood film from the good IL' USA, but that is just a natural quality of Canadian cinema as "we" try to define ourselves.

I thought the movie was quite interesting and the storyline held my attention and interest. Perhaps it's because I am originally from Nova Scotia myself and I could be slightly biased. The film did seem to slow down in the middle but it was ultimately necessary to show Mary's progression to womanhood and finding herself at the end.

SO yeah, while this is all debatable, It does not make me was to emigrate from Canada as the other reviewer has suggested.

This is why nobody watches Canadian movies.

[prodigaljon · 1/10 · 11 August 2001]

You know it's bad when I walk out of a movie about nude models. A jumbled, pretentious mess filled with strange performances and arty-farty messages about nothing, this movie made me want to emigrate. If you live in Canada, don't take Film Studies courses, because this is the sort of fecal matter you're going to be exposed to.