At the time of my writing this, the teachers union in my region is on rotating strikes in an effort to persuade the provincial government to, among other things, allocate more funding for resources to deal with students of diverse needs. As someone with several teacher friends, I have heard stories about how difficult it can be to maintain classes with problem students or hectic behavioural patterns -and the teachers frankly deserve everything they are asking for. These are stories that really resemble The Teachers’ Lounge, a German movie about an idealistic teacher having to deal with an outbreak of theft at school and the fallout from a series of unfortunate episodes on one otherwise gifted student in particular. This is no Abbott Elementary as it depicts, in often very intense terms, an authentic collection of attitudes from both students and teachers reacting to a scandal within the school.
And it does begin with a pretty inappropriate act by the teachers, who sequester the boys of a class and force them to turn over their wallets as a means of smoking out the thief, treating each like a guilty party. It is a scene borne out of a personal experience for director İlker Çatak, who witnessed it while at school in Istanbul. Out of this and a few other accounts he drew up a story about the consequences of such desperation to find a thief and the tenuous relationships between students and teachers. And though it emphatically sympathizes with teachers, it alludes to problem issues within that institution -the profiling of one immigrant boy in the aftermath of the aforementioned scene for instance, due to him simply having more money in his wallet than other students. Uncomfortable with these methods though, and her being forced to single out students is seventh-grade teacher and relative newcomer Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch). It is she who later records via her laptop the theft of her wallet from her jacket, capturing not a face but a distinctive blouse. However in confronting the most likely suspect, an administrative assistant Miss Kuhn (Eva Löbau), she accidentally opens herself up to potential ramifications of secretly recording the teachers’ lounge and more drastically the enmity of one of her best students, Miss Kuhn’s son Oskar (Leonard Stettnisch).
Most of the movie remains strictly in Carla’s perspective, and though there is certainly joy in her vocation, seen especially early on, the film never once downplays the tenseness to her job, which only exacerbates as she increasingly finds herself targeted by fellow staff and students alike. It’s quite similar to the middle section of Monster, with a teacher seemingly framed by a student for misunderstood actions. There isn’t the same nuance though to Carla’s situation, only how much its consequences escalate out of control. No misunderstanding exists between her and this student -indeed she understands this student’s emotions all too well. Carla is a very good teacher, has a great deal more empathy than her colleagues, is generally encouraging towards her students, and gives them the benefit of the doubt even where she’d be wiser not to. And what this movie reveals is just how taxing and emotionally draining it can be regardless. Though the situation is unique and accentuated, and it just continues to pile on her from all sides in a way that might pre-empt a breaking point, it is not at all implausible. In fact this is what makes the tension so potent -even something as trivial as taking part in an interview for the school newspaper is peppered with anxiety.
The movie really gets the ins and outs of modern school environments and the attitudes and psychology of children, who are more aware and (perhaps as a result of this) more confrontational of adult authority figures than they seemed in decades past. While other teachers are very cynical of this, and it would be easy for the movie to be as well, Carla doesn’t stop respecting the kids, even as she has to be stern with them -and even when in one instance she is physically assaulted by one. She is not romanticized for this though, nor is she a doormat for the kids to run roughshod over -rather Benesch plays her as someone who takes her vocation very seriously, is concerned for her students’ mental well-being and who has the strength of will not to play into provocations, from anyone. This includes the dramatic and confrontational Miss Kuhn, and it’s wonderful to see Löbau, who I really liked in the under-seen German drama The Chairs Game, get to play such a great palpably stubborn villain.
The Teachers’ Lounge is a movie that depicts several nightmare scenarios for teachers all at once, Çatak constructing every one of them with a great deal of intensity, keeping the camera close, a bit chaotic and claustrophobic at times, and ratcheting up the foreboding music to create a mood of constant pressure -we don’t actually see any of the court case supposedly being brought against Carla, but its implication on the young relative stranger of a teacher is enough to provoke a great deal of stress -which in one excellent scene she lets out through a class exercise in shouting. The anxiety is visceral, some moments played with almost a tenor of horror -as Carla’s introverted nature and responsibilities on behalf of the school becomes a balance harder to maintain, and she even begins to doubt herself the assumption that led to this whole situation that looks destined to end in extreme measures. And there is a degree here to which the problem child Oskar is cast too much as a devil for the audience to care about Carla getting through to him. Other teachers have to be made to look more unreasonable for their lack of patience with the boy.
But at the end of the day it may be simply a movie about the importance in the effort to reach out -there is still something that connects Carla and Oskar in spite of in his mind her grave sin against his mother. The movie also doesn’t end in a simple resolution for him -as though it is saying that while Carla has done all she can to help him amidst this personal crisis and has done a lot to endear herself, his behaviour is ultimately his own choice -especially where his mother refuses to intervene. The Teachers’ Lounge doesn’t have an overarching philosophy about the role or pedagogical value in teachers, even as Carla epitomizes certain principles. But it does showcase a critical sympathy for them and for all caught up in the sometimes messy world of formal education -the customs of which it slyly questions. It is a difficult world to be in -all respect to those who can make it through.
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