Maybe it’s difficult being a movie star who is badgered by press, a police person who is wearing a body camera or a university president defining the First Amendment before Congress, but just try being a schoolteacher dealing with misbehavior correctly in the classroom.
How can we (I’ve been a teacher for 50 years) be culturally and psychologically sensitive and even therapeutically corrective in a reactive environment? In “The Teachers’ Lounge,” students in Ms. Nowak’s sixth-grade class walk out of class, cheat, give her the finger, and fight. The parents meet and demand that confidential information about what’s going on in class be revealed because “they have a right to know.”
Because the male students must surrender their wallets so authorities can check for a theft, parents think their children have been unfairly accused. When someone wearing the same distinctive patterned school blouse as the school secretary is video’d in another theft, then we have the problem of a secretive video taken without permission. The school newspaper reports one side of the story and is banned, adding combustion to the growing fire.
“The Teachers’ Lounge” is Germany’s entry into the Oscars and it has deservedly so far made the short list. Leonie Benesch brilliantly plays the exceptionally intelligent, knowledgeable math teacher, Ms. Nowak. She has no time for her hair or make-up. She is dedicated and knows math and the reasons for it. She calls on her students to prove their answers and consistently relates math to the real world and what matters. She’s a gem, starting her class out each day with a reciprocal grateful chant.
Award-winning director Ilker Çatak creates tension and suspense with music and the discordance surrounding the characters. Everyone is nuanced with both innocence and guilt. Having grown up in Turkey with a theft experience in his school, Çatak is also familiar with the phenomenon of needing a scapegoat, whether in the classroom or in society. Ms. Nowak’s diverse classroom is the perfect petrie dish.
At rock bottom, “The Teachers’ Lounge” is a scintillating microcosm of modern Western life. Promoted as “a study in power dynamics, with themes of truth, justice, racism, respect, and children’s rights,” it’s a raw picture of life with its ironic recent erosion of truth and demand for protective rights.
Rating: 10/10
Credits
Director: Ilker Çatak
Writers: Johannes Duncker and Ilker Çatak
Stars: Leonie Benesch, Leonard Stettnisch, Rafael Stachowiak, and Eva Löbau
Release: Dec. 25, 2023
Official Website and How to See: https://tickets.teachersloungefilm.com/
. . .
Join us on Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/itsjustmovies!