The Lesson

THE LESSON is one of the mini-budget films (this one from Bulgaria) that packs a solid wallop in story without all the fancy trappings and star studded cast of the big budget films that focus on CGI, noise, and paranormal themes. Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov both wrote and directed this film, a work of cinematic expression that is gaining honors wherever it is shown –and for good reasons. And once again we are indebted to Film Movement for taking up the banner for this worthy film.

In a small Bulgarian town Nadezhda (Margita Gosheva), a young teacher, is looking for the culprit of an innocent child-theft between classmates in her class so she can teach him a lesson about right and wrong. But when she gets in debt to loan sharks, can she find the right way out herself? Nade is an honest, hard-working elementary school teacher struggling to keep her life together. With the home she shares with her husband and young daughter on the brink of repossession and no money to her name Nade resorts to measures her former self, untouched by the realities of economic desperation and moral compromise, would have found depraved, as she makes one last extreme effort to secure the money she needs.

The film moves slowly, allowing the viewer to absorb all the subtle statements about life in a post-communist state. It is a moment of examining the strength of women and schoolteachers that is wholly universal. The actress Margita Gosheva is astonishing fine in the manner in which she portrays this scrupulously honest woman who faces more obstacles that most. She makes Nade credible and lovable. This is a very strong film that deserves a wide audience.

This is extraordinarily good film-making aimed at an intelligent audience. The plot revolves around an ordinary woman who undergoes a banal yet tremendous crisis alone, left to her own devices, without a helping hand. In a sense it is the story of most women, mothers, unrecognized heroes who make the magic illusion of a normal life happen for their children in a dog eat dog world. The main actress is splendid as she portrays a rather restrained, generic middle school teacher who has certain fixed ideas about what is correct and honorable. Sudden danger to the core of her family puts her through a series of trials which force her, and us, to examine easy assumptions about honor and behavior.

Nadezhda is an elementary school teacher in a Bulgarian town. Somebody in the class has stolen money from another of her students. She tries to teach them a lesson and let the money be returned in secret. Her unemployed drunken husband wasted their mortgage payments. The bank raised their interest rate and threatens to take their home. Her father has a much younger woman after her mother's death. She is forced to borrow from a loan shark. The loan is coming due and she has no money to repay it. She is offered an unsavory solution. As she tries to out the thief in her class, she is coming to terms with her own immoral decision.

It's a nice moral dilemma. The filmmaking is a bit weak. There are scenes missing that could elevate the drama. The obvious missing piece is the child thief. This movie is screaming for two side-by-side storytelling. The kid stealing the money could be a great second plot. Missing that, the movie still has a great idea. The ending has some poignancy but it doesn't push the tension to its limits. There are missing scenes that could really raise the intensity.

"The Lesson" has recently received acclaim of almost poignant proportions, empathising with the drama of the schoolteacher heroine in a valueless post-communist state. Being Bulgarian, I can attest to the dramatic existence of teachers here, and would reiterate the fact the film is based on a true story. While the meager pay and monstrosity of society, hence youth's behaviour, is enough to drive one insane, I feel there's a fact which the film treats leniently, and in my eyes, illogically. The pillar of the family, teacher Nadya, is successful in keeping things together (even if unpaid for the side job she does) - until her house is broken into by debt collectors due to her husband skipping monthly payments, while misinforming her all had been fine. Whether she should have confronted him might be debatable, if holding spousal loyalty on a pedestal (which is in my opinion exactly what the film does), yet it is astonishing she should unquestionably take it all upon herself to fix the situation; if that is not enough, her junky-camper-enthusiast husband (far more detracted than, say, Jim Broadbent in Life Is Sweet) scolds her when he finds out she had resorted to a loan shark. The real tragedy the film conveys is that of, I dare say, the average Bulgarian woman who stoically puts up with the often good-for-nothing drunk or slacker husband, because... (here steps the lack of logic, and the lack of questioning by the audiences in Bulgaria). In the real-life story, the teacher had even won a Green card, and had everything ready in order to depart, when the husband got into a drunk-drive accident, nearly killing a passenger. The real heroine is apparently still dragging him on, while having made yet another relative success of her life, now in France. (She had got a 18-month suspended sentence for her crime.) Inadvertently, this film is a testimony of patriarchal post-Ottoman morals, superimposed with the post-Soviet narrative of a woman as crane-operator, or other industrial hero who is also head of the family and pillar of society (after the Mother Russia mythologem) - here being forced to disintegrate. Even statistics beat the myth, with Bulgaria nearing the bottom of worldwide birth rate's table, with war-torn countries above us. The acting of Margita Gosheva is superb if schematic (and her resemblance of the real-life heroine amazing), due to either storytelling shortcomings or intention. I agree with the NY Times reviewer that the story might have been more vivid and character-driven: we still are clueless as to Nadya's emotional landscape, as if it should not even be our concern. For generations, Bulgarians have been raised by being sworn to secrecy and the stiff-upper-lip, while having also been taught obedience: potentially an explosive character mix, which however tends to implode; a process the film registers. We cannot but admire the tight-lipped portrayal of survival-genius overtaking the heroine's inherent femininity. (For an introspection to womanhood, see Margita Gosheva's equally impressive previous role in Three Days in Sarajevo.) My review might be slightly unappreciative, while the filmmakers' intent at a humorous approach to the otherwise gritty story justifies the schematism/intellectual detachment, and is both refreshing and admirable.

From main characters to small cameos, the acting in The Lesson is excellent, with an understated but seriously dangerous loan shark, a layabout husband who is nevertheless wonderful with the family's small child, and even nuanced bank clerks. However, I can only rate it 4 because this feels like a 30 minute short story that has been slowly and excruciatingly dragged out way beyond its natural length. I wasn't aware before watching that it is based on a true story but weirdly, some of the real moments of action are not even shown and it is the build up and constant journeying around the area - by coach, car, and on foot) that appear endless. Having watched the trailer, don't be misled into thinking that the action is typical. The trailer is, of course genuine, but it feels as though another trailer would have completed the story.