Review: Klass

****½ / *****

"What is honour? I think we're speaking about something else. We say "that sucks" or "this blows." We don't say honour."

One (and the best) of several global dramas that clearly culled direct inspiration from the infamous Columbine High School Massacre (and evidence, given its geographic origins, of that tragedy's global impact), Ilmar Raag's harrowing Klass (The Class) unfolds in an Estonian high school where, as with any other school in the world, kids bully other kids. Amid this morass, 16-year-old Joosep (Part Usuberg) suffers from constant, sadistic belittlement and humiliation. One of his torturers, newcomer Kaspar (Vallo Kirs), soon changes sides and offers to protect the victim, as a kind of bodyguard, but in time, per human nature, the bullies also turn him into a pariah. One act of systematic humiliation too many soon pushes the two boys over the edge and sets the stage for an unremitting bloodbath of vengeance.

The film is divided into seven chapters and takes place in an anonymous Estonian secondary school. This isn't a sociological probe into the theme of adolescent bullying which might turn violently against the perpetrators, but more a universal reflection on the darker sides of the human soul, often hidden beneath an attractive exterior, ready to provoke an unexpected reaction under excess pressure. The acting performances (all first-timers, regular kids) of the leads, in particular, give the story - a linear progression where silly pranks develop into a tragic outcome - a highly credible dimension. For the first time you'll see the subject treated realistically. You'll see kids actually fighting back.

While for a long time high school shootings seemed confined to North America, with the killing sprees in Dunblane, Scotland in 1996, Erfurt, Germany in 2002 and in Jokela, Finland just last November, they have started to leave their mark on the European continent and psyche. Estonian director Ilmar Raag, though nominally inspired by Columbine, tackles the subject in a very European way in this highly uncomfortable work, a film that asks a lot of ugly questions about peer pressure, bullying and one's rights to revenge or at least defend oneself (if Van Sant's Elephant purposefully seemed to offer no questions or insight, then this film makes up for it twice, though there are no clear-cut answers).

Klass won the Europa Cinemas label at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and a Special Mention in that festival's East of the West Competition. It also signals Estonia as an important new hotbed of quality European cinema. Besides Raag's feature, other noteworthy titles include Kadri Kõusaar's Magnus (which, like Klass, relied mainly on non-professional actors) and Veiko Õunpuu's Venice winner Autumn Ball, and this accomplished trifecta of films makes it clear that there is a new generation of Estonian directors in their twenties and thirties that have a lot of interesting stories to tell and are not afraid to ask ugly questions or present ambiguous answers. In a country this small (population: 1,3 million), you have no idea how hard that is.