The Lesson

Yeah, when it works, it works. Any of us can fall into the debt trap today. It is therefore quite easy to imagine oneself in the difficult situation in which the sympathetic teacher found herself. From the moment she discovered that, through no fault of her own, she owed a lot of money, I was itching right along with her, and as the movie progressed, I felt more and more uneasy. In reality, I probably wouldn't have had the balls for the final solution she ultimately chose, but I breathed a sigh of relief for her as well. At first, however, I couldn't help but laugh at how she suddenly used stockings for a completely different purpose than the erotic one. Anyway, the idea of spending a few years in prison for robbing a bank is definitely better than allowing oneself to be intimidated, humiliated, and degraded by a disgusting loan shark. (04/07/2020)

The Bulgarian cinematography keeps on amazing me, one movie after another. The Lesson is the perfect human drama with a problem that any one of us could run into. However, they don’t narrate it with an aggressively depressing tone like the Scandinavians often tend to, but gently and with emotion. It doesn’t make you sick to the stomach and you’re excited to see the plot unravelling. I felt bad for Nadezhda, but life can be painful sometimes and it’s up to us to get up, accept it and move on. (09/13/2018)

The Bulgarians, along with the Greeks in co-production, show us that they are capable of making a film that is quite clever, yet civil. I honestly thought it would be even more intense overall, that it would be even more interesting, but in the end it's still a film with a very good idea that is well made. (09/29/2017)