The premise we've seen many times: a high school where a sullen pupil becomes the victim of bullying by his class-mates. But here the story is pictured more harsh and raw than I've ever seen before.
To begin with, the bullying is totally relentless, up to severe physical injuries and utter humiliation, and virtually all classmates, boys as well as girls, participate in it. That Joosep is being the target of his schoolmates is more or less known by the teachers, but they all fail to take the right steps or let themselves be fooled by the culprits. Joosep's father knows too, but he just reproaches his son for being a softy and beats him "to show how it's done". Kaspar, originally one of the cool gang, falls from grace with the others when he as the only one in school takes a stand in favor of Joosep, and the bullying now extends to them both.
The director hits you with all this right in the face and belly and makes you painfully, almost physically aware of all the anguish and fear that the two boys experience. So you just have to team up with them, in spite of Joosep not even being a very sympathetic character, and in spite of the ultimate decision that both boys take when they at last make a stand. This closing sequence in the movie is extremely harsh and just as relentlessly pictured as all the violence in advance. The movie ends right there and then, we have no idea wat follows, you're more or less left on the rock-bottom of exasperation and hopelessness.
For sure not a pleasant watch and definitely not for the tender hearted. Maybe some will think that it was too exaggerated or over the top, but even so it totally worked, delivering the important messages that group-pressure can lead to mindless cruelty; that school-systems are too often unable and insufficiently equipped to detect and handle, let alone prevent, bullying; that violence generates violence and even the softest minds can crack under too much pressure.
An important, intelligent and very well made movie that gets under your skin for a long time.
To begin with, the bullying is totally relentless, up to severe physical injuries and utter humiliation, and virtually all classmates, boys as well as girls, participate in it. That Joosep is being the target of his schoolmates is more or less known by the teachers, but they all fail to take the right steps or let themselves be fooled by the culprits. Joosep's father knows too, but he just reproaches his son for being a softy and beats him "to show how it's done". Kaspar, originally one of the cool gang, falls from grace with the others when he as the only one in school takes a stand in favor of Joosep, and the bullying now extends to them both.
The director hits you with all this right in the face and belly and makes you painfully, almost physically aware of all the anguish and fear that the two boys experience. So you just have to team up with them, in spite of Joosep not even being a very sympathetic character, and in spite of the ultimate decision that both boys take when they at last make a stand. This closing sequence in the movie is extremely harsh and just as relentlessly pictured as all the violence in advance. The movie ends right there and then, we have no idea wat follows, you're more or less left on the rock-bottom of exasperation and hopelessness.
For sure not a pleasant watch and definitely not for the tender hearted. Maybe some will think that it was too exaggerated or over the top, but even so it totally worked, delivering the important messages that group-pressure can lead to mindless cruelty; that school-systems are too often unable and insufficiently equipped to detect and handle, let alone prevent, bullying; that violence generates violence and even the softest minds can crack under too much pressure.
An important, intelligent and very well made movie that gets under your skin for a long time.