The Teachers' Lounge (2023)
An educator's responsibility comes with the plight of balancing diverse backgrounds and financial disparities. It's not necessarily their job to shield the reality of not every student having equal opportunity outside of school, but they can minimize the feeling of inequality in an academic environment. Carla (Leonie Benesch), a Polish emigrant teaching in a German secondary school, finds herself and her class socially disrupted by a case of petty theft. The accusations and supposed witnesses create further disgruntled reactions across the student body when a staff member is suspected of theft, unintentionally involving her child in Carla's class. Admittedly, the school in The Teachers' Lounge is a somewhat extreme depiction of contemporary disarray for an age group that should be under more control, yet there are many truths about director İlker Çatak's quiet battlefield of ideals and bureaucracy. He positions a young teacher's naivety against the ruthless nature of children with questions and a backdrop of unstable authority. The details of the events and people are under a microscope, and the opening scene will suggest The Teachers' Lounge is about students, but I would argue that is only a means to study Carla's character and ethical disagreements.
The Teachers' Lounge walks a divisive line toward its open-ended musings. However, while I appreciate its insistence on fairly assessing all students regardless of our potential preconceptions, it doesn't give a fair chance to those running the institutions. It goes without saying that the atmosphere in the film is that no one is evil, never intentionally choosing to hurt each other for any particular reason, but that's more along the lines of what the viewer can interpret. Generally, the school leaders and their methods are questioned at length by Carla, who believes some of the measures are drastic and could have been addressed differently. She's not false in her reasoning, but I would disagree that absolutism only has negative effects. A level of non-negotiability is needed to maintain order, and sometimes that may include an absence of freedom in some capacity. Not freedom of speech, but the freedom to not show respect to an educator. Additionally, the uncontrolled chaos in the classroom is less about behavioral management and more about students weirdly banding together around an ambiguous topic without fear of consequence. The state of systems in The Teachers' Lounge appears to be faulty administration, but that's never a topic of interest in the narrative, so it is bewildering to see how much influence a newspaper club can have, especially without being assigned an advisor.
Despite the misguided setting, zeroing in on Carla's character study tells us that this is where Benesch's performance and Çatak's scene direction shine. Even if only in this regard, The Teachers' Lounge is fantastic at accumulating disquieting anxiety. It all begins with her presence in the room gradually changing in insecurities and body language as we witness all the routines she's built up during the year deteriorate into subtle bullying and clear socioeconomic struggles between children, who realize it's easier to begin targeting someone before becoming the target. Schools are microcosms of society, enabling an experience of worldly structure and dilemmas. The story incorporates a solid amount of unpredictability as well, using students who may be slightly jaded or resentful, and those impulsive outbursts have a visible effect on Carla's mental state. Her preparation for a lesson begins to fall apart as she questions her own judgment and to what extent she's fulfilling her role as the first line of defense, protecting children from harsh truths. Benesch excels in moments of evocative expression, juggling her obligation and the toll the stress takes on her; one such scene shows her doing breathing exercises to calm herself. Çatak's direction complements the allegories of cancel culture and bureaucratic instability with careful dramatic beats, gently pacing the thrilling aspects with looks of distrust and isolating Carla in an alternating shot of her against her colleagues or parents.
The film ultimately saves itself from my qualms around its clarity through a truly loaded message. For the keen viewer, there is a great deal to unpack from the tonal shifts and plenty of introspection to be done when considering the ethical perspectives. Çatak doesn't ever linger, and the film is always on the move, to the classroom, to the lounge, to Zoom meetings, mimicking the hustle of the occupation well. The Teachers' Lounge does a commendable job of presenting sensitive topics delicately, not intentionally framing any particular staff member as someone who's not operating on behalf of the children's best interests. Carla's character was the best possible choice to lead this story based on real accounts because her inexperience and extreme selflessness are a sign of genuine care, but she's also blinded by her idea of trust. The heavy conflicts are contrasted by Marvin Miller's unsettling string score, using only four classical instruments or often capitalizing on the uncomfortability of silence. The Teachers' Lounge misfires in its holistic depiction of logical school administration; however, it wholly succeeds in its depiction of fear of being outcast. Children and teachers faced with startling unfamiliarity leave very little room to breathe.