I’ve only once set foot in a middle school not as a student. It was at least a decade after I had graduated, and I was shocked at how small the school felt relative to my memory. The corridors that me and my fellow eleven year-olds would traverse five wide now seemed constrictive to my adult frame. The gymnasium felt less like a professional basketball court and more like a hotel gym. The auditorium now felt like a black box theater. This perspective shift was mind-blowing to behold, and I’m sure it would shift even further if I were to visit now, yet another decade now in my rear view.
But looking at the school from the perspective of an adult also highlighted the logistical challenges that my childhood self would never have known to consider. The fact of the matter is that my Alma Mater’s size is perfectly proportioned to maximize its effectiveness. When you have maybe fifty staff members on a given day, all tasked with keeping a few hundred children in check, containment is key. But therein lies the challenge that so many scholastic bodies face: how can they educate and inspire a generation of growing humans while also keeping them safe, organized, and happy?
The Teachers’ Lounge, Germany’s Oscar entry, considers the wide variety of duties and perspectives that exist within a school setting, turning them against one another to tell a tale of human error, bureaucracy, and the difficulties of quantifying the unquantifiable in a scholastic setting. Something something paved with good intentions.
Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is a new teacher at her school, and as things go, she’s a pretty good one. The children respect her and her lessons are generally quite effective. She is comparatively green, as evidenced by her unique idealism. She truly wants what’s best for the kids. Same goes for her well-intentioned peers, most of whom have a little more grit to them — they’ve been around the block a few times, and are a little less starry-eyed about their roles as educators. Sure, the kids need to be taught and respected, but rules are rules and sometimes you have to let the system do its work, the soft touch of idealism be damned.
These disparities are all pretty standard day-to-day school stuff (I know a few teachers who have told me about their ever-hardening outlook as a matter natural selection), but things change when a spate of thefts occur within the school walls. More importantly, within the walls of the teachers’ lounge (Hey! That’s the name of the movie!). The immediate reaction of the staff is to seek the culprit within the student body, employing silent pressures for the kids to turn out their pockets and wallets, all while hiding behind the notion that compliance is voluntary. Carla is the first to stand-up for the civil liberties of her students, but when she suspects that perhaps the thief resides amongst the staff, her own investigation is not very considerate of said liberties.
The story takes place almost entirely inside the school, giving this drama the feel of a single-location thriller. Certain elements have a horror-tinge to them as well. We think of the final girl running from the murderer, seeking to break out of a constricted space; to turn the corner and find an open door through which she and the killer’s paths may diverge, granting her some semblance of safety. The Teachers’ Lounge finds this same energy through an opposite approach. Instead of seeking room to breathe and escape, the story here is about containment. The villain (which is an intangible in this case) must be contained within the school, but the methodologies employed by Carla, her peers, and the children themselves, are threatening to bleed beyond the walls of the school and into the town, and into the homes of the students, threatening the school’s effectiveness as both an educational institution and a place of work.
Marvin Miller’s score is one of the best of recent memory, also leaning into horror/thriller vibes, despite underlining a story that has very little by way of on-screen action. When using such present music, there’s always a risk that it will distract from the narrative, accidentally shifting things into camp territory. That’s never an issue here, and it speaks to how well textured the soundscape is. Mixed with the general din of a building filled with children, it all comes together effectively.
What gives The Teachers’ Lounge its power is its willingness to play with ambiguity while also motivating the characters in real, human ways. Savvy viewers will recognize early on that this isn’t a whodunit story. It isn’t even a whydunit story. No, this is a whatarewegonnadoaboutit story. It’s a tale of methodology; of trying to find the best solution when no perfect ones exist. It’s about that fine line between following orders and doing the right thing — between giving oneself to a greater cause and covering one’s own ass.
Multiple times throughout the film I was reminded of Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, insofar as there are very few outwardly bad actors navigating the issue. It’s hard to blame any single decision made by these characters. Every last one is understandable, even if it ultimately proves to be damaging or disastrous.
Directed by Ilker Çatak
Written by Johannes Dunker, Ilker Çatak
Starring Leonie Benesch, Michael Klammer, Eva Löbau, Leonard Stettnisch
Rated PG-13, 98 minutes