Manuel Groesch
What I liked about the movie: I was personally affected: I was a bit of a Joosep during some of my school years (being good at French and liking ballads didn't really help my standing). I thus could very much relate to the feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness and it brought some of these feelings back. However now I can look at that time from the point of my life I am in now which makes it all less terrible - The depiction of complete injustice that eats at the audience and hopefully makes those that help in producing such injustice realize what is going on.The troubled father-son relationship and the inability to communicate. Again something I can relate to very well - The movie has the right length to tell its story. It is never rushed but also never drags plot point out for too long - By the end of the movie I was rooting for them to start shooting. A film must be well-made for me to want someone to commit a horrible act. I felt almost relieved when the inevitable finally happened - The inability of the adults to act and to understand the gravity of the situation. The reactions of the teachers and parents are abysmal in many respects.Let's be real: I watched a movie in Estonian.. I felt really arty after that ;) What I didn't like about the movie: Character development is a little weak, especially with Kaspar. If the 7-day plot isn't meant to be symbolic, for Kaspar to turn from respected clique-member to cold-blooded killer in 7 days seems implausibleThe shooting scene seems implausible in a lot of aspects: why don't any of the students who clearly see the gun when they enter the school say anything, why does Kaspar continue to shoot when he realizes as he says himself: "I killed a girl from the 8th grade"The acting wasn't on par but as I understand most of them were not professional actors which is a symbolic touch that makes the below-par acting forgivable Some of the humiliation seems a bit exaggerated especially as some of the attackers don't really have motivation to do these things and to go to yet another level of humiliation every single day All in all: A very good movie with some character development, plot and acting flaws, which still deserves it's 9 rating because of what it made me feel and how it reminded me of my past and because of the direct and mind-boggling way it manages to depict injustice.
Arcadio Bolanos
The law of the jungle is fair and kind compared to the law (or lack thereof) of high school. 16 year old boys can act with the utmost cruelty and viciously attack their peers. Contemporary psychologists call this phenomena bullying. And that's exactly what Joosep is struggling against. He's constantly bullied by a group of abusive boys that act under the guidance of Anders, the alpha male, the ultimate bully.When the boys assault Joosep in the locker room and remove his clothes, leaving him completely naked, Kaspar, a boy that was part of Anders's circle rebels against the abuse and saves Joosep from further mortification. Kaspar then embarks upon an almost impossible task, after all, he is an idealistic adolescent fighting against an abstract threat. He can fend off Anders for a while, but he cannot neutralize bullying as a continued and ever increasing practice in high school.Anders ridicules Joosep persistently, accusing the defenseless boy of being gay. It doesn't matter if Joosep is gay or not, the important thing is that Anders behaves like every other uncouth teen in the world: he relies on the homosexual phantasm in order to articulate himself in the symbolic order and, more accurately, in a place of power within the lawless dynamic of high school.Homosexuality is seen as a synonym of the abject, id est, the vilest, the very lowest condition of man. That's why it's also the most common insult among teens in Western (and perhaps Eastern) society. According to contemporary philosopher Slavoj Žižek, we should ask here a naive, but nonetheless crucial question: why does the Army so strongly rejects gays? Not because homosexuality poses a threat to the 'phallic and patriarchal' libidinal economy of the military community, but, on the contrary, because the Army itself depends on a disavowed homosexuality as the key component of the soldiers' male-bonding.In fact, in any phallocentric society there will be an insatiable need to humiliate the one who who doesn't act as manly as he should. And if there is no such person then every group of men will create this figure, even if it's as a purely phantasmatic projection of their own fears and insecurities. This of course pertains to high-school, after all, adolescence is a difficult age in which the subject must reaffirm both sexual identity and gender role, something that is made all too clear in "Klass".This flimsy concomitance of extreme and violent homophobia with thwarted homosexual libidinal economy, is evident in high school. That's why it's impossible for the boys to divulge what is really going on in their lives: they cannot explain this to their parents or teachers.Once a popular boy, Kaspar is now labeled as a pariah, joining Joosep in the murky confines of the land of the "losers" (it's fascinating to observe that this dichotomy between popular kids and losers exists not only in the US but also in Estonia). Thea, Kaspar's girlfriend, loses her patience. Why is he defending this pathetic, antisocial boy? For Kaspar is a matter of honor. If Anders represents power, Kaspar is the heroic resistance.Anders is completely obsessed with the alleged homosexual condition of Joosep. Although very subtly, Ilmar Raag's film presents a homophobic that could perfectly be a (furious and frustrated) closeted homosexual. Anders displays an obsessive behavior that obtains libidinal satisfaction out of the very compulsive rituals destined to chastise gays. That's why when he fails to create the fantasy of homosexuality through an elaborate scheme of false e-mails sent to Kaspar and Joosper he chooses a more radical approach.Hazing is a typical masculine ritual. Should this practice be publicly disclosed the very dynamics of the heterosexual normativity would be undermined. Because to consider themselves as straight guys, these boys must depend on a mechanism of self-censorship. Hazing seems to be accepted by adults as long as no one outside school finds out about them. That's why in sports class teachers don't worry about Joosep getting punched. In the same way, Joosep's father gets mad at his son, not because of the hazing but because the hazing has escaped the boundaries of school and has reached their house. The rule is simple: violence can take place as long as it's not discovered.Anders's new trap seems to work at first, when he captures Joosper and Kaspar in the beach. There, he menaces both with a knife; he then proceeds to put Kaspar on his knees and forces him to receive Joosep's penis into his mouth... while filming everything with a digital camera. The hazing, of course, nowadays can be perpetuated through YouTube, Facebook or any other social network. Anders has planned to destroy the two boys, to make them feel so ashamed that they must either leave the school or commit suicide. But once these images are broadcasted online, the required self-censorship gets deactivated; thus vacating the place of power and creating a counter-power.In other words, Anders can no longer be the leader, something made clear by the comments of the boys in his group, who feel disgusted at his actions. The homosexual slandering had been fundamental for them insofar as it had only worked in the dimension of the phantasm. Once homosexuality is embodied by the two victims, everything falls to pieces. After Anders has degraded his two victims, he loses all power, and thus empowers Kaspar and Joosper who now feel compelled to exact revenge on the bully."Klass" is one of the most honest, heartbreaking, cruel and powerful films I've ever seen regarding teenagers, games of power and violence. Once violence escalates we know that tragedy ensues. Reminiscent of productions such as Gus Van Sant's "Elephant" or Murali K. Thalluri's "2:37", Ilmar Raag gets to the core of adolescence and creates an extraordinary story that dissects the nature of power and violence.
g-white723
I just watched this film last night, and although the subject matter was depressing, I think it was factually accurate of the type of stupid behaviour we now see in classrooms all over the world. The main character Joosep is an introverted teenager that doesn't get along with his classmates to such an extent that they regularly pick on him. It is quite excruciating to watch the regular bullying that takes place, and the futility of his situation. At the beginning, the film states that this story is based in truth, which is quite sad. What angered me, and I think is a flaw in the film, is that there is no overt criticism of the school, or the teachers where this drama takes place. The teachers are so unaware of what is happening that it is quite ridiculous. The bullies are portrayed as evil, but for me the teachers are just as bad.Having already watched the very good film 'Elephant', I new quite early on how this drama would unfold, as it is very much the same kind of story, but still this film held my attention to the bitter end. I thought the kids were really good especially the performance of the bullies ( I can't remember their names but one character was called Anders). They reminded me a lot of characters from my own school days. In the end it is a matter of honour that ends the story. In my opinion, this film is more accurate than Elephant but it doesn't have the dramatic impact, as you can guess the ending very early on.
