Tree of Knowledge

A classroom in Denmark. The children are thirteen or fourteen and moving into adolescence. Elin is the best liked girl in the class. Then some small thing happens; a rumour nobody can quite account for, a look, a word. Elin is slowly frozen out and never understands why. Nils Malmros's Danish film was shot with child actors in a real school. The telling declares nobody cruel; it shows how exclusion can happen as something nobody actually decided. The film is counted a classic in Denmark and is spoken of as one of the most honest works ever made about adolescence. The tone is calm and painful.