Easy Lessons

Kafiya's story would be a grateful subject for any documentary maker, and with this rendition we get the intimate, direct and unadorned shorts of her current life that is probably the best way to approach a teenager in this difficult time. The documentary style is modest, each scene full of details that the viewer can pick and assemble. A thin narrative is only held together by diary-like monologues, which provide details that the film's style would not otherwise allow. The film focuses, quite deliberately, on Kafiya alone, her feelings, her insecurities and novel but natural flashes of her everyday surroundings. Even knowing about this artistic restriction, the film is lacking in what it doesn't show. There's no mention of the arduous year-long journey to Hungary, of the government's harsh campaign against migrants reaching it's heights during these years, of her family's reaction to all that has happened to her, even if only reflected in her own words. The aim to be a consistently free flowing personal film is respectable, and the lack of political aspects could be explained by the government grants that made its creation possible - but with this setup, Könnyü leckék remains a beautiful yet narrow window that entertains a lot of important thoughts, even if it doesn't reach emotional depths deep enough to stay with the viewer much longer than its running time - which the story is making worthwile regardless.