HARMONY LESSONS (Uroki garmonii) B+
Kazakhstan
France Germany (115 mi)
2013 d: Emir Baigazin Website
Much in the same vein as other darkly disturbing films that
expose the deadly effects of systematic violence and corruption, like the
Mexican film Heli
(2013) or the Russian film The
Major (Mayor) (2013), all are brutal films that unleash a horrific price on
what are otherwise innocent bystanders who happen to be pulled into this
viciously dirty business. While there
don’t seem to be as many mafia movies these days, in their place are a
multitude of films about swarming gangs of thugs that control a highly
specialized marketplace, as they’re each one a loose commentary on black market
capitalism that lives by its own rules, like the Wild West, answering to no law
but their own. Each one survives by
inflicting enormous violence, which generates an accompanying fear associated
with it, allowing them to continue to operate with impunity. Until another gang moves in that’s bigger or
stronger, they each feed, like vultures on a carcass, within their own
established turf. What could be more
localized than the rural regions of Kazakhstan?
Beautifully set in a landscape of mountains and snow, where a vast
emptiness seems to dwarf the inhabitants living in the small town, the
harshness of survival in these lonely outskirts is expressed early on when
young 13-year old Aslan (Timur Aidarbekov, who was discovered in an orphanage)
first has to catch a slippery sheep and then slaughter and skin it under the
supervision of his grandmother. Written,
directed, and edited by this first time director, he already exhibits a mature
style, making a strikingly realist film with nonprofessional actors, yet he
uses an interesting technique of skipping past major incidents, where we only
learn what happens by the repercussions afterwards, leaving much of what
happens in a permanent state of ambiguity.
Aslan is a quiet and studious farm kid that keeps pretty much
to himself, having few social skills and no friends, the kind of kid that
doesn’t speak unless spoken to, where he takes his schoolwork seriously and seems
to have a talent for science, where he collects cockroaches, tying them on
strings and feeding them to his lizards living in a fishbowl, while at the same
time he’s learning about survival of the fittest from Darwinism. When they teach him electricity, he concocts
his own tiny electric chair and fries a poor unfortunate roach. But his reserved, anti-social behavior makes
him a popular target for schoolyard bullies, who are little more than extortion
artists led by the lead thug Bolat (Aslan Anarbayev), threatening to beat up
anyone who is seen talking or befriending Aslan, who quickly becomes isolated
and even more of a social outcast. We
soon learn Bolat collects money from lower classmen, which is then handed over
to upper classmen, who are in turn extorted by local gangsters, where the money
is used to support their members in prison.
This social hierarchy is thoroughly in place, where anyone who doesn’t
play by the rules gets attacked and beat up by several of Bolat’s sidekicks. Another kid that recently moved from the
city, Mirsayan (Mukhtar Andassov), isn’t really afraid to stand up to bullies,
as he’s not impressed, but he takes his lumps.
There’s also a side story about an attractive young Muslim girl, Akzhan
(Anelya Adilbekova), who insists upon wearing a headscarf, even in gym class,
as otherwise boys spend too much time leering at her, actions that she feels
violates the Koran. She wants nothing to
do with stirring up that kind of desecrating behavior, even though the school
officials urge her to remove it. One of
the more curious moments finds Aslan spying on her when she’s performing a modern
dance routine, which may all be happening inside his head.
There’s constant head-butting against authority in this
film, as teachers are quick to lecture kids who challenge their authority,
which means they’re not listening to the concerns raised by the kids, who often
provide them with information they need to hear, but instead they get punished
for it. Similarly, if they go against
the grain with Bolat, they’ll be brutalized for anything outside the norm. Meanwhile both Mirsayan and Aslan have
aspirations to defy Bolat, choosing different methods, where Mirsayan is willing
to fight him one on one, while Aslan resorts to more devious means. When Bolat is found dead, an act we never
see, they are the prime suspects, where the police instantly fill the void of
the schoolyard brutalizers, literally torturing the two kids to force them to
talk, but both insist they had nothing to do with it, even after extensive
beatings. At one point one of the cops
turns to the other asking what if they’re telling the truth? But they quickly put those thoughts aside, as
they’re paid to get the results the commander is looking for. Every level of society is bullying whoever is
directly below them on the food chain, creating a horrific picture of rampant
corruption and brutality in the education, police, and criminal justice
systems, where Mirsayan and Aslan are their current victims. Because the film is told in such a realist
style, it comes as a complete surprise when the director uses dream states for
Aslan, which only becomes evident by the out-of-character events unfolding,
expressed through an exaggerated state of mind.
This method is even more effective by leaving out so much of the
significant material, where the audience and the police are only privy to
theories and unproven allegations, relying instead upon motive and established
character traits, yet it remains something of an elusive puzzle for everyone to
comprehend. Bolat and his gang could
only operate with teachers continually turning a blind eye, while the police
and their henchmen brutalize suspects with no community oversight. In this manner, the police have no
established credibility with the audience, as we’re not likely to believe their
questionable results, leaving the finale in a mysterious state of psychological
disbelief, where truth is often difficult to obtain, clouded by the murky
methods of operation. The cinematography
by Aziz Zhambakiyev is often stunning, giving the film a grimly poetic yet
continually gripping feeling of austerity and despair.
