Fekete pont

Fekete Pont is a very realistic picture of what a Hungarian elementary school looks like and how dysfunctional it is. By showing a personal story of Palkó, a new 10-year-old, whose mother has to return to Hungary from Germany, the film brilliantly portrays the entire education system - rigid, corrupt, outdated, inefficient, and what's most important - absolutely deaf to the children's needs. We can see two rebellious voices in the film - one of a child who doesn't feel he belongs here, and the other one of a young teacher who comes to this gloomy place with an open heart and an open mind. Their voices seem to be too weak to be heard but by watching this film we are learning to hear them. And learning to notice, to see, to help, even if we're not in a Hungarian school; wherever we are in the world. Hopefully, this film is a small start of a big change both in the system and in our heads.

This movie is about the Hungarian elementary school system and its inflexibility. During this it gives also a detailed picture about the current Hungarian society.

I have two sons currently studying at elementary schools and the picture presented by the movie is extremely correct. The excellent teatcher who gets fired because of some political stuff, the old ladies gossiping in the teatchers room, the autocratic headmaster, the handywork teatcher who can not operate a computer etc. The movie also has a lot of funny moments, tragic but at the same time funny.. However I found it rather sad, because my older son got bullied and cathegorized as a black sheep by the teatchers in his previous schools. They got rid of him after 6 months. So I couldn't laugh. The actors performances are very good, considering many of them are children or just amateurs. Its a movie worth watching.

This film holds up a realistic mirror to the surreal world of school. It's not an imaginary world, but it would be better if it were. You can meet your memories with the unimaginable amount of frustration, anger, fear that drives the daily school life that each of us experienced either 40 years ago or currently in school. The main theme is the little human games within the different micro-societies, the children, the teachers, the school as an institute, the school maintenance and also between these groups. The strength of this film is the realistic characterisation, the feeling that it has happened to you. And it has happened, and it is happening again and again, generation after generation. Every nation has a main issue that sooner or later has to be discussed honestly because it can't move forward. The state of education could be that key question for Hungary. A big bravo to the crew, to the children, and to the strongest Hungarian film of the year.

Seems like a harmless movie but under the surface it's really depressing, sad and frustrating. I would like to say it's just fiction, but sadly I have so many similar memories from my childhood and not much has changed during the last decades.

This is like a manual how to ruin small children and shape them into the "perfect" citizen who obeys, asks no questions and supports the system.

The system without empathy. (Just look at the parents, they are the perfect example.) The system that doesn't want to solve the real problems, just hide them. That kicks out the ones who are thinking different or who needs help.

You could get PTSD from it - it contains all the oppressive atmosphere of schools, along with the misery of Hungarian schools. Incompetent teachers, bureaucracy, rejection (or even punishment) of any deviation from the rules. The better teachers are oppressed or fired, while the bad ones protect each other. The principal doesn't care what's going on - if someone asks for help or even just advice, they're brushed off. Some of the parents are problematic too. There's injustice toward the kids, they're humiliated. They're forced to memorize completely pointless stuff. (And it even brought up that thing I used to always use as an example - that stigma-whatever thing...)

The film is good - actually, very good. But at the end, you might be expecting a resolution, some kind of revelation about what the problem is, where the problem is, who's at fault, whether there will be any accountability... but there isn't. The film shows reality, and in reality, there's no happy ending. The guilty hide, there's no accountability, if someone has a problem nobody gives a damn, and those who want change have no way to make it happen.