Hungarian director Bálint Szimler’s first narrative feature Lesson Learned, which was awarded at Locarno, takes an interesting approach to the honoured tradition of the school picture. The genre has seen many winning additions in recent years, including Norway’s Beware of Children (Midnight Sun 2024), Belgium’s Playground (Midnight Sun 2022) and Germany’s The Teacher’s Lounge. Like its predecessors, Lesson Learned delves into topics far beyond school. The independent production that faced financing difficulties in “Orban’s” Hungary builds into what can be seen as a metaphor for the country’s seemingly hopeless current situation.
Palkó, a quiet ten-year-old foreign student from Berlin, and the school’s other new arrival, the idealistic literature teacher Juci, both struggle and feel like outsiders in the oppressive school milieu – observing them, it is difficult not to reflect upon the society that surrounds them. According to Szimler, in current Hungary, teacher wages are extremely low, education reforms are forbidden, and headmasters are being laid off. The director utilizes a mostly amateur cast and lauded cinematographer Marcell Révi’s 16mm photography to portray, in an almost claustrophobic way, how problems go unaddressed, “strange” ideas are resisted and dissidents defeated.
Timo Malmi