Tag: Leonie Benesch

There is something going on in the teachers’ lounge, which goes way beyond school walls, in the thriller-like German drama THE TEACHERS LOUNGE. With high tensions and a dark comedy undercurrent, THE TEACHERS LOUNGE is about more than the classroom, as the best of intentions gone horribly wrong. The powerful, jarring drama is also an Oscar nominee for Best International Film.

The story takes place in a middle school, where a series of thefts has the staff on edge but the drama is really a parable about modern society at large. THE TEACHERS also flips the expectations of movies about teachers, where the idealistic teacher breaks through the strictures of the school to triumph and change students’ lives.

In the teachers’ lounge of this nice but ordinary German middle school, the gossip is flying, particularly about the series of thefts taking place at the school. Idealistic young math and gym teacher Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) tries to avoid the gossip, and focus on her work with her beloved students. The chatter reveals that the teacher’s suspicions now are falling on students for the thefts.

In early classroom scenes, we learn Carla is a good teacher, caring and in control of her classroom. When students who did well on a test ask her to post the ranking of test scores on the chalkboard, she cleverly asks them questions to show them the downside of such public comparisons. Her warmth with the students and her idealism make her admirable, but set the stage for what is to come.

While Carla tries to steer clear of the other teachers’ speculations about the thefts, she is unwillingly drawn into the situation when she is called into a room by another teacher. There she finds the school’s principal (Anne-Kathrin Gummich) and some teachers pressuring two students to report on their classmates about who they think might be the thief. Alarm bells go off for us, and for Carla too, but despite her interjections letting students know their cooperation is voluntary, the principal and other teachers undermine that, first giving lip-service to those rights, and then pressing the students again. Uncomfortable, the kids assure the adults they don’t know anything but eventually, they point to a boy – who is the son of Turkish immigrants. Since the student said they don’t know, they likely just picked a student who is not well-liked. That it is an immigrant student is unsettling. Carla, as uncomfortable as she is with this situation, is now a part of it.

As an immigrant from Poland herself, Carla is aware of an undercurrent of discrimination and being labeled “other” herself, and sympathizes with the Turkish student. Hoping to prove Ali is innocent, Carla then makes her first mistake. She sets a trap for the real theft in the teachers lounge, counting the cash in her wallet and then leaving it in her jacket pocket, but with her computer camera on and pointed at the pocket. Then she leaves it unattended in the teachers lounge. When she returns to check the wallet, some money is missing. When she checks the camera footage, it does indeed clear Ali but what it reveals creates a whole new problem.

Carla is indeed idealistic and well-meaning, but she is also naive. She makes assumptions and mistakes With the best intentions, she did something she shouldn’t have, secretly filming the people in the teachers lounge,. Hoping to set things right, she keeps making mistakes which make the situation worse, and everything she does to correct that, makes it even worse. We’ve all had that day, that week, that month, where best intentions blow up and no matter what we do, things get worse. Everything Carla does just digs the hole deeper.

The story is told from her point-of-view, which means we don’t always know what goes on out of her sight. While early scenes showed us Carla is a good teacher, but as things outside the classroom spin out of control, so does her control of her classroom. Carla has a moral certainty but everything in the story is ambiguous. Carla identifies the real thief not because she see a face but by a distinctive patterned blouse. It is never established that she is the only one wearing that blouse that day, nor is it clearly established that Ali or another student is innocent. Instead, accusations and suspicions fly, with little proof of anything. Everything is ambiguous, but what is clear is that someone who was not a fault, Carla’s most promising student, Oskar (Leo Stettnisch), ends up paying the highest price,

The direction by İlker Çatak, who co-wrote the screenplay with Johannes Duncker, is as taut as the drama is tense. The acting, the tightly-controlled choice to shots, and the precision editing, gives us a sense of fear and dread that builds as things spin out of control.

The school says all the right things about diversity and treating students with respect but in practice it asserts control, making it clear that no matter what they say, the administration and the school structure that are in charge. What starts out as a private matter spreads throughout the school, and truly explodes with the student newspaper gets involved.

Director Ilker Çatak builds suspense and tension skillfully as the the situation’s complications grow and Carla starts to buckle under the pressure. Leonie Benesch is outstanding as the young, idealistic math and gym teacher Carla Nowak. Carla holds herself apart from the other teachers with her ethics but those same ideals make her inflexible and unable to see the fuller picture. Her idealism leads her to actions that are well-intentioned but not well-thought out, which do not accomplish what she hopes.

Director Çatak often focuses on Benesch’s expressive face, with her large, innocent eyes, as Carla’s confidence in her ability to put things right crumbles. As someone who has also been labeled “other,” she projects feelings into situations without truly understanding the facts. As things do not go as she hopes, her frustrations heighten and her confidence erodes.

Another acting stand out is Leo Stettnisch as her student Oskar, a shy but bright student. Oskar is torn between his fondness for the teacher who seems to recognize his potential, and his loyal devotion to his mother. Anne-Kathrin Gummich, as the principal, is a skilled player at school politics, turning everything to put herself and the school in the best light, and deflecting blame away from the administration, even if that means throwing Carla under the bus. Carla never seems to blame anyone for their self-serving behavior, even the person seemingly caught on camera, who responds to the accusation with over-the-top rage and a vengeful attitude that does not consider her son’s best interests.

Eventually, Carla becomes the object of accusations, not of the thefts but of being a bad teacher. Her control of her classroom degrades as the scandal spreads. We see early on that she truly cares for her students, that she is a good teacher, but her ethics and her idealism make her rigid in a way, and she wraps herself in a prim superiority to the compromising, more cynical staff around her. That inflexibility, that inability to engage with the realpolitik of the situation, contributes to disaster in the end. The ending is ambiguous too, except in one respect, that it is the innocent who will pay the price for this mess they did not make.

If you are looking for an inspiring teacher story who triumphs over the system, THE TEACHERS LOUNGE is not that. But it is a brilliantly-acted, beautifully-constructed, drama that is less about teaching or German schools, and more a symbolic commentary on a larger modern social system, one that is broken and cynical, that the wraps its prejudices in a cloak of tolerance and sensitivity, a cloak that often only really serves to cover one’s own posterior.

THE TEACHERS LOUNGE, in German, Polish, and Turkish with English subtitles, opens Friday, Feb. 9, in theaters.

RATING: 3.5 out of 4 stars