Péter Gárdos refrains from giving a direct answer, but the depiction of the boys given by the first 90 minutes of Prank shows them as sometimes nasty, but still likeable. On the other hand it is glaringly obvious what sort of insolence is growing inside them. The boy characters are acted magnificently. Especially well done are the three children we see most of: the shy topof- the-class student, the dissolute card sharp and the sentimental adventurer. Gárdos would be unable to deny his affection for them and his knack for working with them. The opening shots of the first day of the school year—displays of well-scrubbed knees, socks already slipping down legs, trousers held up with string, freckles, games of stone-paperscissors, feverish

anticipation—show that Gárdos is on the boys’ side, against the teaching staff. And there is no straight path that leads from the shining eyes and enthusiasm on the faces of the good teachers (which does not hold the boys back from wishing clouts around the ears for the same teachers), from brave manifestations of solidarity and a sense of justice, even from the customary japes and leg-pulling stunts (shoelaces tied together, hidden spectacles, a bucket of cold water balanced on the door) to sadistic torture and bloody violence. One simply has to accept that we do not have answers for everything; we cannot understand everything, particularly about ourselves.