Although a Bulgarian-Greek co-production there is something decidedly Romanian New Wave about this stripped back depressing drama. Romanian New Wave by way of Belgium’s Dardenne Brothers that is.
Margita Gosheva plays an honest, hard-working teacher in a grim town somewhere in Bulgaria. She’s at a loss as to why the thief who stole a classmate’s wallet won’t own up, even when her attempts to guilt the culprit into confession – forcing everyone in her class of twelve-year-olds to contribute to the victim’s lunch – don’t come to fruition. But this is the least of her problems: her daughter is sick with an undisclosed illness and her layabout husband has spent their mortgage on fixing up their caravan, which still sits idly outside her house. When the bank threatens foreclosure, she is forced to turn to a slimy money lender to make ends meet…
Writer-directors Kristina Grozeva and Peter Yalchanov exhibit the traits of Cristi Puiui, Christian Mungui et al, they’re unobtrusive approach is more akin to Belgium film’s favourite sons. The Lesson is after the Dardenne Brothers’ knack for portraying a warts ‘n all reality. Something that’s on the grim side yet is all too recognisable, namely financial pressure, loveless marriage, dead-end job.
It does heap on the misery a little artificially at times, however. One sequence has her receive a call at work to say that the bank has underestimated the payments due and she is short a few Levas (a few euros). She races from work… only for the car to break down en route. But she makes it just in time before the bank closes and, lo, there is bank charge for the transaction. She almost laughs at the Murphy’s Law/Kafka-esque bureaucracy.
While it’s easy to get on board with Gosheva’s plight here, it’s hard to believe that the difference between a home and an eviction is just a few euros. And there’s another unlikely turn of events: Would a financially comfortable father not help her dire straits daughter because she hasn’t apologised to his trophy wife in a manner he deems acceptable? It is developments like these that strip The Lesson of the life-as-lived realism it was at pains to hammer home in the opening exchanges.
But despite this The Lesson is never anything short of engrossing. That’s down to Grozeva and Yalchanov’s unfussy, in-the-moment direction and Gosheva’s performance. Written as a stoic, determined woman, Gosheva’s stone-faced expression never cracks, even when she’s told by the money lender that he’ll either have his money… or her. It’s this unshowy turn that sees one through any wrinkles that crop up the story.