The Teacher’s Lounge - Movie Review

Critics Score - 8 of 10

General Audience Score - 7 of 10

Most of us can remember what it was like to be in grade school. There was always some Tommy likes Sally type of drama between pubescent boys and girls, but rarely were there incidents of any note that got the whole school on high alert. Most of those types of dramas are saved for the unfortunate circumstances when a child brought a weapon to school or there were accusations of sexual misconduct. Well, the new German film The Teacher’s Lounge explores the topic of a theft in a middle school that threatens to send the entirety of the school, teachers and admin as well as many of the students, into a tailspin. This film at just over a hour and a half flies by as the dominoes fall, one after the other, in a series of events that make up some of best drama you can find onscreen. While a school theft is nothing new, this film extracts every ounce of chaos from its premise, contemplating all angles and intriguing aspects without getting lost in any melodrama. It reminded me of the criminally under seen film Boiling Point from a couple years ago, only a high end restaurant is a place you’d expect a fast paced and high intensity drama to unfold. Both general audiences and critics alike will enjoy getting pulled into this powder keg of a situation and watching the fuse running out, even if some might leave disappointed without the film putting a neat little bow on it’s ending. Despite the foreign language barrier and subtitles in this spoken German film, don’t lounge around waiting to catch up with this Oscar Nominated movie, you’ll have a blast hanging out in this Teacher’s Lounge.

SYNOPSIS - We’re thrust headlong right into the start of the “action” as the film opens with scene of Carla (Leonie Benesch) or Ms. Nowak as she’s referred to by her students, she’s on the phone. As she speaks to someone, then searches for a pen to write a number down and immediately the score kicks in with its sharp jabs of violin work. Within the first minute this music begins creating an edge that the film stays poised at, the threat of falling over lingering for the duration of it’s runtime. Another teacher beckons Carla to hurry up and she scribbles some numbers on her hand. She hangs up, slings a brown leather satchel bag over her shoulder and heads down to a meeting. A school bell rings as she makes her way down the stairs, the violin continues reverberating its chords into our ears as Carla enters a meeting between two other teachers and two students. “We need to put a stop to this”, the teacher says. These two “class representatives”, are then asked to mention any of their classmates they suspect that might have taken some money that has gone missing. Despite their denial of knowing anything, one of the teachers, Thomas (Michael Klammer), presents the two students with a list of their classmates and goes down the list until the one boy gives an audible “Yeah”, about one of the names. As we hear Thomas getting the informant to out his classmate, the camera stays fixed on Carla. She stares straight ahead and we can see the wheels of morality turning in her head, she’s clearly not comfortable with this situation and how it’s being handled. She returns to class where she has her students stand and after performing a good morning clapping routine, they turn in their homework assignments.

We watch a couple minutes of their normal daily classroom activities before an interruption by Thomas and two other teachers. They enter and have all the female students wait outside, then have the boys remove their wallets and place them on their desks before standing aside. As they go through and check the wallets, they find one young boy, Ali, has a suspiciously large amount in his and they ask him to come with them. All the while we observe as the camera periodically gives us shots of Carla, looking on and taking in the situation, her solemn face and grave demeanor, again, speaking volumes as to her comfort level with all of this. The scene cuts and we’re immediately taken into a meeting. Ali’s parents are summoned and we watch as Ali stares at the floor while his mother explains, “I gave him the money this morning, so he could buy a gift later.” After explaining for a couple minutes that he was going to buy a video game for a cousin after school and asking what the meaning behind all this is, Ali’s parents, being from an Arabic nation, begin conversing in their native language. The German speaking teachers look on, disquieted by their lack of understanding at what’s being said. As the meeting concludes, Ali’s father says very seriously, “My son doesn’t steal, ever. If he did, I’d break his legs.” Ali’s gaze moves up from the floor to his father after hearing this, he, the other teachers and we the audience would all bet he’d make good on the cold, hard threat. As the first act continues, we work through a few more sequences of classroom and gym curriculum, we’re introduced to a few more of the students and staff members, including one of the school admin, Ms. Kuhn (Eva Löbau), who’s son Oskar (Leonard Stettnisch), is in Carla’s class. But Carla, deciding to take matters into her own hands, sets up a trap for the school thief and leaves her wallet inside her jacket on a chair in the teacher’s lounge. Her computer camera is recording her jacket hanging on the chair while she leaves the room. The resulting video, implications, controversy and accusations that arise of who stole the money sets off a chain reaction of events that threatens to engulf the entirety of the school in complete chaos. 

It must be stated that this mostly unknown cast, being led by the wonderful Leonie Benesch, as well as its amazing selection of child actors, are really putting on an impressive show. Benesch has such a fantastic screen presence, her facial expressions and body language all conveying the unease we the audience are feeling through these scenarios. The taut script by Johannes Duncker is only directed to near perfection by Ilker Çatak, whom I attribute a vast majority of the reason to why this film works as well as it does. His directorial decisions of pulling these pieces together, executing so many elements with precision and making something as benign as a school theft into such a high octane film that almost leaves you breathless is a work of pure genius. Although the score was incredibly simple in presentation and sometimes repetitive, the discomforting and uneasy tone it helped the film capture I found to be some utterly brilliant work. Alongside the music keeping the audience on edge was the editing, many of the shots only linger just as long as it’s necessary and then were moving on which helped the pacing to absolutely fly by. Similar to the incredible Anatomy Of A Fall from this year, everything about The Teacher’s Lounge was all working in unison to create a tidal wave of momentum that carries you through to the finish line. While Anatomy left viewers with a much more well rounded and satisfying ending, as I mentioned earlier, The Teacher’s Lounge will ultimately leave some viewers wanting more or even a little underwhelmed with how it all concludes. I didn’t mind it and even enjoyed the fact that it wasn’t tied up with a pretty little bow. And really, that wasn’t the point of it all anyway, but that’s probably just my film sensibilities these days. This film’s finale might get on some people’s nerves. Watch out for this one when it becomes available near you, just another little foreign film that proves how amazing international cinema can be.

SUMMARY - There’s a reason why this film made the cut for Best International Feature at this year’s Oscars over the delightful Fallen Leaves or my personal best actress winner Juliette Binoche in the amazing The Taste Of Things. So don’t worry about going to detention this time in school, you’ll find that every moment you spend in this riveting Teacher’s Lounge will be time well spent.