DRAMA
“The teacher’s room”
Premiere at the cinema on Friday 3 May
Germany. 6 years. Director: Ilker Çatak
With: Leonie Benesch, Michael Klammer, Eva Löbau, Leonard Stettnisch
Polish Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is a teacher in Germany. It is her first term at school, everyday work is stressful. (She writes messages to herself on the back of her hand – when was the last time you saw an adult do that?).
She has a hawk’s eye on the students, and a helicopter perspective on everything that goes on at the institution. She takes her job very seriously. Has a well-developed sense of justice.
When a young Muslim boy is accused of a series of thefts from the teacher’s room, she doesn’t like it. I don’t think it’s OK that 6th graders are exposed to profiling, questioning and searches, and are encouraged to become whistleblowers. So she decides to conduct an experiment.
She leaves the laptop in the teacher’s room, with the camera on, while she goes to class. Leave the jacket with the wallet – everyone in Germany still uses wallets, of course – to hang over the back of the chair.
When she returns, the footage suggests that the culprit is not a student at all, but an adult employee. Specifically, the school’s indispensable and well-liked secretary Friederike Kuhn (Eva Löbau).
Kuhn has a son in Carla’s class: Oskar (Leonard Stettnisch). He is introverted, but clever – a brilliant talent in mathematics. When the mother is accused, Oskar breaks down. Half the school surrounds him, the other half starts bullying the boy.
The unrest spreads to all parts of the school system, like a poison. The students and their parents are turning against the teachings. The teachers face each other. The dutiful Carla becomes the center of a scandal with far-reaching consequences, and is consumed by a terrible pang of conscience.
The distrust is breaking her down. The parents’ chat on WhatsApp demands that someone must take responsibility for the unsustainable situation at the school. Someone has to go.
The “teacher’s room” takes place almost entirely in the classrooms, in the corridors, in the offices and in the common areas of the school. An environment director Ilker Çatak seems familiar with. We don’t get to know anything about Carla’s private life. What matters is the drama unfolding in her workplace.
But we recognize her as a good and well-intentioned person. We also know the students: Sometimes relaxed, sometimes rude, sometimes smart, sometimes silent, the class clown (who sits at the bottom of the class, with the desk facing a different way than everyone else).
And that we care! About her and them. We pray that things go well with Carla. We ask that things go well with colleagues, students and parents. We pray that pedagogy and diplomacy will win the day. The alternative is not worth living with.
Benesch, known from Michael Haneke’s sadistically intense “The White Band” (2009), is superb as the horrified Nowak (there is such a role that you think Ane Dahl Torp could have played the life kit of here at home). Especially good with the eyes and the fingers. It’s acting on a level that justifies the ticket price pretty much on its own.
In general, it is remarkable that it is obtainable so a lot of thrillingly good and exciting drama from such an everyday premise as Çataks does here. There is also room for a bit of dark humour:
Carla to student: “Do you smoke?”. Student: “No”. Carla: “So what do you use that lighter for then?”. Student: “To boil heroin”.
Brilliant film.
