THE TEACHERS’ LOUNGE (TIFF 2023) – Review by Liz Braun
Someone at a German junior high is a thief. The stealing has the whole school on high alert, and a few teachers have called on class reps to report any suspicions they have about their fellow students.
Idealistic young teacher Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is appalled by the notion of asking children to accuse one another, and disturbed by the racism that seems to underpin some of those accusations.
She decides to find out who the thief is on her own.
That’s the basic premise of The Teachers’ Lounge, a riveting drama from director Ilker Catak that suggests even the high moral ground has its pitfalls. The film is a masterpiece of stress and anxiety — much of it conveyed through Benesch’s extraordinary presence — and all of that dread underlined by a last-frayed-nerve-use of strings in Marvin Miller’s score.
The excellent cast includes Eva Lobau and Michael Klammer.
Carla is a dedicated teacher of math and PE and it’s obvious her students like her. She treats them with respect and expects the same in return, but the daily grind is nonetheless daunting — mean girls, cheaters and bullies abound, and that’s just the faculty.
Carla cleverly sets a trap for the thief and records the results, sneaking into the women’s bathroom to look at her evidence. What she’s done produces results, and she confronts the person she thinks is the thief. That action turns one of her own students, a bright kid named Oscar (Leo Stettnisch) against her, and creates chaos at the school. She is suddenly under fire from parents and the other teachers, and feels herself losing control of her classroom. And maybe of herself.
In the school setting, co-writer/director Catak has created a microcosm of the world we live in, with all the same differing factions, prejudices, offhand cruelty and cancel culture machinations available on a daily basis. The Teachers Lounge is a tense, brilliant ride; the film won a handful of German Film Awards in 2023 and will represent Germany in the Best International Film Category at the 2024 Oscars.
