Harmony Lessons

Thirteen-year-old Aslan lives with his grandmother in a small Kazakh village where he attends a school with an extremely high level of crime. Although not at first entirely noticeable, the boy suffers from a personality disorder that gradually manifests itself in the untenable convergence of his strict sense of order and extreme perfectionism with the violent school environment where the rules are made by the strongest and most aggressive students. Bolat is a leader of a local gang that humiliates Aslan at the outset of the film. He and his minions then continue using violence to extort protection money from the other kids to give to their friends in jail. But the daily dose of terror eventually pushes Aslan to an act that goes beyond the established hierarchy of power. This surprisingly mature debut, featuring outstanding performances by the young leads, subtly builds up its atmosphere via a sequence of images of the boy’s daily activities. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)