Berlinale 2023: The Teachers’ Lounge - A hard-hitting observation of human power play

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Image Courtesy: Berlinale
Image Courtesy: Berlinale

Ilker Catak’s feature film, Das Lehrerzimmer (The Teachers’ Lounge), playing in the Panorama section of Berlinale 2023, took me back to Maria Speth’s celebrated documentary Herr Bachmann und seine Klasse (Mr Bachmann and His Class) that won the Silver Bear in Berlinale 2021. Like the former, a lot of the action in The Teachers’ Lounge happens in a unique classroom, peopled by students of diverse ethnicities, some immigrants and underprivileged with an idealistic, empathetic, and amiable teacher, Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch), at the helm. She believes in experimentation than the old-school modes of teaching, and motivates and encourages her students to express themselves, share opinions, discuss, debate, and argue. 

However, while the movement in the real-life story of Mr Bachmann and His Class is towards a sense of convergence and stability, in the fictional world of The Teachers’ Lounge is all about an unfortunate disassembling and devolving. All it takes for things to come undone is a series of thefts in the school.

Catak doesn’t waste time. The intimations of trouble are sounded out in the opening sequence itself, together with the conspicuous tension. And the sense of urgency only builds up over the 94 minutes of the film, magnified by the ominous background score. 

On the one hand, there is the familiar trajectory of suspicions and allegations and unfairly using people’s hunches and misgivings about others to try and pin down a possible culprit. On the other is a principled bunch of students, parents, and teachers who regard the inconsiderate interrogation as a violation of personal rights and are unwilling to participate in the vicious hunt in which it’s the disadvantaged who usually end up getting unfairly humiliated. The constant assertion that “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”, is nothing more than deceptive. 

There’s something admirable in the student-teacher equation at the core of the film. Not just when it comes to the good ones like Oskar (Leonard Stettnisch) who Carla goes out of the way to encourage and care for but also the unique bonding and exchanges with those who are openly headstrong, insolent and insubordinate. There’s an interesting mix of authority and equality in her dealings brought alive by bravura turns from Benesch, Stettnisch, and the rest of the ensemble cast.

Catak paces the film like an edge-of-the-seat thriller but doesn’t turn it into a whodunit. His focus is not on solving the crime or giving us any ready answers but on documenting the human response to it and the regrettable repercussions of trying to get to the bottom of the truth. 

The more an outraged and concerned Carla and the rest of the staff and students try to set things right the more the situation spins out of control till the entire school system reaches the precipice of collapse. The chaos outside parallels the turmoil in Carla’s own head as she reaches the brink of a breakdown. Can the act of solving the Rubik’s Cube bring a modicum of order to this world? Catak’s leaves things cleverly open-ended.

“What happens in the staff room stays in the staff room,” says Carla. But nothing quite does. Nothing can be discreet or private under the circumstances. Everything is up for scrutiny. The Teachers’ Lounge is a hard-hitting observation of the human power play and how it dredges out the divides and sharpens the fault lines even in a close and seemingly well-knit community. 

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