THE LESSON
12:302:505:107:309:50
Through Tuesday, March 17
DIRECTED BY KRISTINA GROZEVA AND PETAR VALCHANOV
From Bulgaria comes this taut, foreboding drama that begins innocently enough as Nade, a well-meaning school teacher, scolds her students after uncovering a trivial theft. But the real financial crisis belongs to the teacher herself when she discovers her drunken lout of a husband has mortgaged their home to repair his junkyard car; and her affluent, widowed father cares a lot more for his young girlfriend than for her. Facing foreclosure, Nade turns to a sleazy loan shark whose idea of payback is beyond shocking. Joe Leydon in Variety: “The naturalistic style of the storytelling is stealthily enthralling, as is the lead performance by Margita Gosheva… Echoes of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne and even a few hints of Robert Bresson abound throughout… (in this) emotionally supple and richly detailed portrayal of a desperate yet tenacious woman who only gradually reveals herself as fully capable of going to extremes… Nade’s ultimate solution to her daunting problems comes off as equal parts triumph and tragedy.”
BULGARIA / GREECE • 2014 • 105 MINS • IN BULGARIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES • FILM MOVEMENT
Reviews
“An effectively suspenseful quasi thriller…(with) Ms. Gosheva’s disciplined, quietly heartbreaking and almost SUBLIMINALLY WITTY PERFORMANCE.”
– A.O. Scott, The New York Times
“WORKS ASTONISHINGLY WELL. The film’s mixture of the everyday with the extraordinary suggests the sort of quasi-thriller that the Dardennes were after in LORNA’S SILENCE. (The directors of THE LESSON) are that rarity: perverse humanists. The film ultimately understands poverty as a profound and often irreversible desolation of terra firma.”
– Chuck Bowen, Slant magazine
“Nail-biting action of the last two-thirds…the movie is GRIPPING FROM MOMENT TO MOMENT.. (the directors ) make some subtle but effective framing choices.”
–Noel Murray, The Dissolve
“Quietly compelling human drama… (with) a commanding central performance from Margita Gosheva… You become completely captivated by her refusal to surrender to her fate.”
– Allan Hunter, Screen Daily