★★★1/2 There is something in this film of symmetry with The Invisible Gaze, Lerman’s most successful film to date: both take place in a high school, both have figures of power over the students (a preceptor in The Gaze. .., a substitute teacher in this) as a core. But that one spoke of an elite school and this one, of an underprivileged one; that one, from 1982; this one, from 2022. The game between the two can also show what has happened (to us) in four decades: here we have a student body with little interest, a teacher who tries to lead them to an interesting and profitable place, and violence – the narco, neither more nor less- roaming around the boys. Minujín plays his character with ease: it is obvious that he knows him well and knows how to build him. Lerman paints that universe with sometimes hyperreal nuances. The film works. But it also falls into simplifications and stereotypes that try to find a certain epic. Even with its shadows, there is something there that deserves to be seen.
