The Teacher’s Room isn’t a horror film, but it still evokes feelings like slasher battle records and Torture orgies in the FSK 18 department of a long mothballed video store: You squirm while watching, but you can’t get enough of it either.
The German school thriller with Leonie Benesch (Babylon Berlin) is the first highlight of this year’s Berlin International Film Festival. The best thing about it: it already has a theatrical release date. But first to the movie…
In the thriller, a teacher only wants to do good and thus triggers a scandal
In the contribution of the Berlinale Panorama section, the wonderfully sensitive Benesch plays the kind of teacher one would wish for. She presents her material in a committed, creative and modern way. Whether in math or physical education, Carla Nowak (Benesch) has the children under control without having them “under control”. The idealist sometimes takes the side of the learner. This is necessary, because when there are repeated thefts at her school, her colleagues resort to means of investigation that call into question Carla’s professional ethics. From now on she investigates on her own.
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The teacher’s room
Through video surveillance, she finds out that a school employee is stealing. However, her piece of evidence triggers a cascade of consequences that will drive the teacher to the brink of despair. Worse still: She of all people mutates into bogeyman of her beloved student body.
Any further escalation is nerve-wracking
Johannes Duncker and director Ilker Çatak (the spoken word counts) develop a chain of action, suspicion and evidence in their screenplay Drama with the pace and suspense of a thriller and a nerve-wracking atmosphere that many horror films can only dream of.
First of all, the film shows the everyday work of the new teacher Carla in simple, expressive moments. It consists of small talk, tensions in the staff room and the exhausting but fulfilling work with the children. The Theft series at school overshadows the film from the start like a dam in search of the crack.
This thoroughly uncomfortable atmosphere characterizes the teacher’s room. Carla’s work is observed coolly and efficiently, but it also becomes cool and efficient prepared for each individual escalation level. Action follows reaction. The young teacher goes to the principal with the evidence. The suspect is confronted. She denies all allegations. She is on leave. Her son blames Carla. Is the evidence even legal? The suspect threatened to sue.
The pressure is increased until it is almost unbearable. And it does so with a precision in preparing turns reminiscent of Ruben Ostlund (The Force Majeure, The Square).
Alamode Film/Film Agents
The teacher’s room
The teacher’s room thus develops an almost unbearable field of tension. On the one hand there is Carla, who is right and yet provokes injustice. Every well-intentioned action turns out to be a boomerang of unforeseen consequences. On the other side is the suspect. In between is her son, whose childlike fragility pierces the heart between the colliding adults.
The teachers’ room addresses serious problems in school operations
This Psycho-War also thrives on its everyday nature. Equal attention is paid to the dynamics in the classroom and staff room. Bullying among children and young people stands alongside passive-aggressive spikes among teachers. It’s like Stromberg at school, only you like everyone involved and there’s little to laugh about (but at least a little).
In any case, I squirmed in the Berlinale armchair and winked imploringly at the emergency exit sign, also because Judith Kaufmann’s camera (corsage) consistently follows the heels of Leonie Benesch’s Carla, which is why the other people eventually break into her life like the aforementioned dam to an idyllic village. In any case, our perspective is so closely intertwined with that of the young teacher that that at some point it will take your breath away.
In The Teachers’ Room, systemic problems of school operations are touched on when children’s lives get caught up in resentment and bureaucracy. When nobody asks “why” and everyone asks “who”. And that’s an accusation that the brave, idealistic, admirable Carla has to face just like everyone else.
The teachers’ room is coming May 4, 2023 in the cinemas and it is already one of the highlights of the German film year.