The kids have never been less all right than they are “3 Weeks After,” a nightmarishly intense depiction of high school bullying and its consequences from Serbian director Miroslav Terzić that offers not a scrap of sentimental faith in future generations. Following an ill-advised — and very ill-supervised — class tour to the Balkans in the immediate wake of a tragedy that has left the school’s student body even more restive and less disciplined than usual, Terzić’s third feature works up an extraordinary degree of tension around the relentless targeting of one outcast child, culminating in acts of youth-on-youth violence that merit the strongest of trigger warnings whether or not they’re directly depicted on screen. The predatory precision of Damjan Radovanović’s camerawork alone is enough to knot the stomach; startling sound design amps up the horror even when our eyes are spared.
As a portrait of adolescent cruelty at its most extreme and unnerving, “3 Weeks After” stands comparison with Michel Franco’s 2012 breakout feature “After Lucia,” which likewise deployed Haneke-style observational tactics that may divide opinion as to the line between candid, unfiltered realism and exploitation. Realism, however, isn’t the objective in a finale that turns the tables without pursuing anything like catharsis, and doesn’t ring quite as true as everything that precedes it. But this is a challenging, high-wire arthouse provocation, achieved with immense and auspicious formal skill and consideration — perhaps the most purely cinematic statement of intent in this year’s Karlovy Vary competition.
