İlker Çatak’s film is about an educator who wouldn’t give up on her students, even as the education system fails them; in a rotten system, there is only so much an idealist can do
“Nobody was frisked. It was voluntary,” says a teacher in a discussion in the lounge. This happens shortly after the Principal of the school interrupted a class and pressured students into leaving their wallets on the table. The elementary school is hit by a series of thefts and the administration suspects it is one of the students.
The Teachers’ Lounge (German: Das Lehrerzimmer), Germany’s Oscar entry, follows a 7th grade elementary teacher, Carla Nowak (essayed by an earnest Leonie Benesch), who must make the difficult choice between her principles and toeing the line of the school administration. The film which, on the surface, seems to be about exposing the cracks in the school system, becomes about Carla’s internal conflict: the battle between the educator in her and the school employee.
Idealism leads to downfall
Carla knows the Principal overstepped a boundary and violated the personal rights of the students by coercing them to have their wallets searched. To add insult to injury, the administration racially profiled a student with immigrant background, Ali, whose parents are rightfully livid at the idea of their child being singled out because of his identity. Carla seems to be the only teacher in the school who noticed this was a gross violation of student rights. She is the only staff member in the school who has her spine intact. As an employee, she must parrot the school administration’s line but the educator in her knows better.
It is, therefore, not a surprise that Carla often voices her disagreement with the administration’s way of dealing with the thefts. However, even the most well-meaning people lose their ground and end up in trouble in a system that is designed to reward dishonesty. Carla secretly records the school receptionist, Mrs Kuhn, stealing money from her wallet which gets Kuhn temporarily suspended. But the recording itself is a violation of Mrs Kuhn’s personal rights.
The Teachers’ Lounge follows a 7th grade elementary teacher, who must make the difficult choice between her principles and toeing the line of the school administration.
Carla, in an effort to catch the thief, recorded an employee without their consent. This trickles a domino effect. Mrs Kuhn’s son Oskar, a brilliant student, is now bullied in the class even though some students stand in solidarity with him. Tensions escalate when in a parent-teacher meeting, parents accuse the school administration of violating student’s rights — leading to a verbal spar between Mrs Kuhn and Carla.
In a heartbreaking scene, Oskar offers money to Carla — 63 Euros and 45 cents — to compensate for his mother’s theft, pleading “It wasn’t my mom…she is innocent”. Carla’s idealism and strongly-held beliefs lead to her downfall. As rumours of Oskar being forced to leave the school circulate, Carla loses the goodwill of her students, who regret throwing a welcome party for her.
The thing about the educators
As Carla’s colleagues demonize Ali and write him off as a failed student, who is ‘difficult’, Carla stands with him, stating firmly: “The semester has only begun”. Carla is the only teacher on the council who is against Oskar’s suspension from the school, even as he destroys her laptop and assaults her, which causes serious friction among the teachers.
Carla’s crime is that she is too idealistic. The school administration wants to happily wash their hands off Oskar but Carla vetoes it and decides to give him another chance. This decision costs her heavily, as Oskar returns to school despite being suspended and is escorted out by the police.
In a system which is rotten all the way to the top, there is only so much an idealistic person can do to bring change and inspire their colleagues to do the right thing. Carla tries as much as she can to safeguard the students and doesn’t give up, even as she herself lands in trouble. At its core, The Teachers’ Lounge is a film about an educator who just wouldn’t give up on her students, even as the education system fails them.
Carla sees transferring Oskar to another school and writing off Ali as a failure on the part of the school. It makes one wonder — if our educators had adequate amounts of emotional intelligence, will we see as many school dropouts? ‘School isn’t for everyone’ sentiment might just have some truth to it, but are educators playing their role efficiently and giving ‘difficult’ students a chance to prosper?
An emotional callback
İlker Çatak’s film shows that the system is more likely to change the idealist than the other way round. Carla’s efforts to do the right thing drives her to the point of a mental breakdown. She has a panic attack after the PTA meeting and hallucinates as the student, colleagues and the council unite against her.
Nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards and Panorama Audience Award nominee at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival, The Teacher’s Lounge will keep you at the edge of your seat and leave you with an inconclusive ending. We never really find out who the thief is. It doesn’t matter for now, the lives of several innocent people, including a kid, are ruined.
The only semblance of a closure that the viewers get from the film is Oskar solving the Reubek’s code that Carla gifted him — an emotional callback to a time when the student-teacher relationship between the two wasn’t strained as a fallout of a rotten system. The Teacher’s Lounge is tense and tantalizing. The gripping drama has a haunting background score which adds to the tension and the 1.37:1 aspect ratio only adds to the feeling of suffocation and entrapment Carla feels trying to protect children from a monstrous world.
The Teachers’ Lounge is playing in theatres
