Starring Lázaro Ramos. In Portuguese, with English subtitles. Rating unavailable

Movies about devoted educators who change the lives of slum-dwelling students—well, they offer an overly familiar kind of uplift, don’t they? On paper, The Violin Teacher certainly seems to go there. In the theatre, however, this beautifully crafted character study pulls off most of the tough stuff it attempts with that extra dose of feeling, perspective, and poetry that elevates mere social commentary into real art.

It starts with a strong star. Handsome Lázaro Ramos is well-known to Brazilian TV-watchers and famous abroad for the transgender lead in Madame Satã. Here, he plays Laerte, a skilled and highly educated musician. When we meet him, our fine fiddler is bombing out in an orchestral audition and also with the other members of his pro string quartet, seen rehearsing in a pleasant quarter of São Paulo.

We don’t know if his social problems are rooted in being a dark-skinned Afro-Brazilian in a rarefied, Eurocentric world or because of his generally chilly personality. But without a current job, he is willing to take a bus into Heliópolis, a sprawling favela outside of town, to teach a bunch of poor kids how to play Vivaldi and Bach. We’re only given pointed clues in the terse script by director Sérgio Machado and several others, adapting a play unexpectedly written by Antônio Ermírio de Moraes—one of the richest people in the world until he died, two years ago, and a sometime politician.

The smoothly shot and smartly edited movie suddenly departs Laerte’s POV in order to follow some of the kids to their homes, where the expected urban troubles are parked. But this is just enough to put his conflicts in context, and to make their collective struggle for self-expression about something more than a hobby. Much of the instrumental playing is mimed, of course, but the filmmakers mix it realistically, so motorbikes and barking dogs are never far away. The inspiration is felt, not faked.