This tense German drama about a theft incident in a school perceptively reflects the state of the world today in a classroom, backed by an excellent lead performance by Leonie Benesch.

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Two years ago at the Berlinale, we had Mr Bachmann and His Class (2021), a nearly 4-hour-long documentary that centered on the eponymous teacher and his students (of various ethnicities) in a German classroom.  It was one of the most illuminating films of the year. 

This year, we have another German film set in a similar milieu, albeit a fictional one, in The Teachers’ Lounge, which is also Germany’s official submission to the 2024 Oscars for Best International Feature. 

From the early moments when we hear the sounds of an orchestra warming up as a schoolteacher gets ready to enter and ‘conduct’ her morning class, I knew this was going to be an excellent film. 

It doesn’t disappoint and through writer-director Ilker Catak’s firm hands, we get a tense drama sparked by an inciting incident: a theft in the school. 

Leonie Benesch is outstanding as Ms. Nowak, a Polish teacher at the center of what would become an ugly personal and professional storm as faculty, staff and students become embroiled in a spiralling situation marked by mistrust, deception and anxiety. 

“We’re the ones who are confused.”

The Teachers’ Lounge could do for prospective teachers what Jaws (1975) did for swimming at the beach—there is the fear of bad reputation from students (and their hawkish parents) even if colleagues are on the teacher’s side. 

Catak’s work functions best as a ‘microcosm’, where he perceptively channels and reflects on the state of the world today through the conduit of a classroom. 

Disinformation, prejudice, accusations and ‘power play’ become rampant with increasing surveillance and ‘internal threats’—as such, one might even allude to the film’s indirect if sly jab on the country’s divisive ‘Cold War’ politics of yesteryear. 

I’m an educator myself and I know how the job can get challenging at times, but this film affirms our profession’s innate capacity for empathy, even if it gets our blood pressure to an all-time high.    

Grade: A-

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