The Class

Colour, 35 mm
Hungary, 2008, 120 min
IP – International premiere
Section: East of the West - Films in Competition

Synopsis

Karcsi, a Roma policeman, lives with Eva, a Swede. One day he is called to the scene of the murder of a wealthy trafficker named Schulter. He begins to investigate the crime, interrogate neighbours and suspects, and untangle a complex situation – one that he, himself, complicates even further. The Class is a remarkable, dark and grotesque crime film that brings to mind last year’s Karlovy Vary winner Jar City. Based on the novel by Ákos Kertész, director Gábor Dettre has come up with a shrewd genre work full of dusky humour and surreal situations. The Class follows a vivid succession of strange images that eventually lead to the emergence of the central story about a charismatic police officer on a tireless quest for the truth, though he must fight against virtually everyone and is just as fallible as the next person. Altogether this creates a bizarrely sinister and bitter testimony of the cruelty of today’s world and the people living in it. As expressed through the main character, the film makes issues a statement on the issue of race and racism – or, indeed, relations between any minority and majority.

About the director

Gábor Dettre (b. 1956, Debrecín, Hungary) studied law at New York University and attended New York’s Tisch School of Arts. He has worked in the USA, France, Switzerland and Chile. His films have garnered around twenty international awards. Dettre has been the creative force behind a number of television and film projects, and his first movie, which was made in the United States, was Black Lights, White Shadows (1989). Since then he has made nearly a score of films – documentary, television and feature – that have included Labyrinth (Labirintus, 2004), Crumbs of Diamond (Gyémántmorzsalék, 2004), Sharp Shooting in Thick Fog (Sűrű ködben célba lőni, 2003), Song for Itself (Önmagának szóló ének, 2003) and Cloud Over the Ganges (Felhö a Gangesz felett, 2001). The Class is an adaptation of a 1992 novel by Ákos Kertész.