The German title for The Teachers' Lounge (Ilkar Catak, 2022) is Die Lehrerzimmer, that is, "the teacher's room." The film takes place in a school in Hamburg and, apparently, in German education, teachers don't do much in the way of "lounging." The room where the faculty gathers is a cheerless open hall where the teaching staff sit at what appear to be cafeteria tables, heaps of paper and curriculum materials at their assigned places. The room seems set up for the teachers to all face in one direction. It's obviously a place for preparation and grading papers (and other tasks of that sort) and casual conversation/ lounging, if not verboten seems to be discouraged. German high school teachers appear to be ferociously disciplined. They don't engage in small talk and seem to be always working even when not engaged in teaching in the nearby classrooms. The movie is similarly disciplined: it's action takes place in one place, the school (apparently the Albert Schweitzer Gymnasium in Hamburg, mothballed at the time the movie was shot) and we don't know anything about the personal lives of the instructors at the school -- they don't have love affairs or any sort of home life shown in the movie and the film never depicts them in any place other than at the Gymnasium. The movie is austere, economical, and well-acted -- the children are convincingly nasty, opportunistic, and belligerent. The teachers seem harried, afflicted, like most post-War Germans with too much social conscience -- a significant part of the film depicts wrangling about the civil rights of the students. The administration and teaching staff at the school want to have things both ways -- they want the students to enjoy a civilized, non-hierarchical learning experience while, at the same time, attempting to enforce an iron law of duty, obligation and hard work on the hapless kids. Of course, the conflict between enlightened progressive values and the need to supervise and manage a school packed with bright and rebellious adolescents leads to the film's understated tragedy. You can't boss teenagers and, at the same time, try to grant them the autonomy of reasoning, adult German citizens. Notwithstanding everyone's best efforts at being civil and liberal, everything goes to Hell.
Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is an Ossie, that is, a German from the far East. We learn that she speaks Polish, possibly as her Mother Tongue, although in the German school-system everyone is supposed to communicate in Deutsch -- she also is fluent in English. Someone mentions that Carla grew up in the 80's in a small town near Gdansk (Danzig). I think it is implied that her earnestly held egalitarian principles may be consequence of being raised in an environment previously dominated by the ruthless and monolithic East German Communist-regime. In any event, Carla teaches mathematics to a class of what seem to 12 to 13 year old kids; she also works as phy-ed instructor. Carla is enthusiastic and hard-working. She gets her kids attention by clapping her hands and having them respond by rhythmically and percussively clapping back at her. (She shouts "Guten Morgan" to her students and they shout back at her in singsong chant.) Someone has been stealing from the teacher's wallets in the Lehrerzimmer and a couple of the more aggressive male teachers (phy-ed types themselves) try to coerce a couple of boy in the class to act as snitches. Carla opposes this as being unfair and unreasonably invasive of the student's personal autonomy. Then, after another theft, the athletic male teachers invade Carla's class, dismiss all of the girls, and search the boy's wallets -- this also is very offensive to Carla who remonstrates with men conducting this investigation. A student of Turkish background is discovered to be carrying a lot of cash and so he's accused of the thefts. It turns out that he's innocent and the mere fact that an ethnic minority was wrongfully accused of theft causes much soul-searching among the instructors and administration -- were they showing "systemic racism" in making the accusation? Carla decides to set up a trap. She leaves her purse containing some cash in her jacket, tells everyone that she is departing the room for awhile, but has set up her laptop computer to film anyone monkeying with her garment. The thief strikes and is caught on film, although only the sleeve of her blouse marked with a pattern of red stars is visible in the digital imagery. Carla observes that a woman named Friederike Kuhn is wearing a blouse that matches the garment of the thief. She accuses Frau Kuhn who vehemently and tearfully denies committing the theft, throwing her wallet at Carla. Frau Kuhn is some sort of secretary employed at the school and, unfortunately, her son, Oskar, is a gifted student in Carla's math class -- indeed, possibly her best and most promising student. Frau Kuhn is suspended while an investigation is commenced. Carla also finds herself under investigation for setting the trap and filming her colleagues without their permission and consent.
Oskar reacts with rage to the accusations against his mother. Carla begins to doubt herself. She has a panic-attack when the incident comes up for discussion at an ill-advised parent-teacher conference. Oskar is influential, with many friends, and he turns the students in the class against Carla. Naively, Carla agrees to tell her side of the story to a student newspaper -- these being gifted German kids, the newspaper's motto printed on the wall is Veritatis omnia vincet vincola (Truth overcomes all fetters.) . The article turns out to be a hatchet-job and Carla is further accused of being a tyrant and poor teacher, assertions made to her face by the students in her class who refuse now to clap on command and won't sing "Guten Morgan" to her. Carla confronts Oskar and he snatches her laptop computer containing the evidence incriminating his mother, punching the young teacher in the eye, and, then, running out of the school to one of the many canals in Hamburg where he deep-sixes the laptop. For this, Oskar is expelled or, at least, suspended from attending school. Carla conducts a primal scream session with her kids, all of them bellowing at the top of their lungs and, it seems, that the tension is about to relax. But, then, Oskar shows up, takes his seat in the classroom, and when confronted by Carla mimes shooting everyone down with a pointed finger. This terrifies Carla and she flees the room, summoning a couple burly male teachers to assist her in the classroom where chaos has erupted. The other kids are dismissed. Carla, who feels the need to make peace with Oskar, locks herself in the room with him; this sets up the final confrontation between teacher and student. (As will be observed, the plot has the characteristics of a three or four act stage-play -- it observes unity of location and takes place across a period of about four or five days.)
The movie is fascinating and thought-provoking as well. The Gymnasium is imagined to be haven for reason, tolerance, and enlightenment, but there's a fundamental contradiction in the way it is operated -- it's a school and the teachers, notwithstanding their non-hierarchical ideology, are required to exercise authority, indeed, arbitrary and coercive authority over the students. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Carla's kindly and liberal approach to education leads to the alarming conflict that ruins her relationship with her most promising student. Oskar is similarly moved from being a compliant, intelligent student to a radicalized rebel and rabble-rouser. His mother never admits theft and, as the film progresses, Carla comes to believe that she has caused all of this trouble and that the catastrophes that befall her and Oskar are all her fault. The film's final sequence is striking. We see the empty rooms, basketball courts, playgrounds, and corridors of the big Gymnasium. Everyone seems to have fled. Two big men carry Oskar out of the school as if enthroned -- he sits in a chair that they hold over their shoulders. Oskar has become some kind of King, a noble figure and royalty -- but the men carrying him wear vests labeled Polizei and they are taking him to jail. This is a fine film and one that will haunt you for several days after seeing this picture.
No comments:
Post a Comment