The Edukators

Over the lifetime of this blog, there have been a few typos, but The Edukators is not one of them - nor is it a dig at declining educational standards. This is a German language film, which I watched with the benefit of sub-titles. It was a hit at the Cannes Film Festival and is directed by Hans Weingartner.

The set-up is intriguing: the film opens with a wealthy family returning home to find that their lovely house has been turned upside down, and a message has been left for them by the intruders that seems to suggest the motive for the break-in was distaste for affluent lifestyles, rather than theft.

We soon learn that ‘the Edukators’ are two young men, Jan and Peter, who are in effect indulging in ‘protest art’, unnerving rich people by disturbing their complacent lives. Their attitudes are idealistic, and in some respects hopelessly naive, yet oddly appealing. When Peter leaves his girlfriend Jules for a few days, she develops a relationship with Jan, who introduces her to the twilight world of ‘the Edukators’. But then she pursues a personal grudge against the man who ruined her financially, and things start to go wrong...

This is at times a slow-moving film, but nevertheless it exerts a grip, and it certainly has an originality that lifts well out of the ordinary. The story concerns crime, but it is the relationships between the four main characters that are at the heart of the film. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started watching The Edukators, but I’m glad I did see it, and I rather think it will linger in my mind longer than many more superficially entertaining blockbusters.