The Teachers' Lounge [2023]

 Packed with paranoia, anxiety, angst and outrage, amidst a rapidly escalating scenario and multipolar confrontations, İlker Çatak’s The Teachers’ Lounge is a rare pulsating thriller that’s set rigorously within the confines of a school. And this dynamic, variegated, ostensibly hallowed and supposedly tightly controlled space, in turn, served as microcosmic representation of the broader society, and a sharp critique of it too. Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is a young teacher recently hired at a junior high school, where she teaches math and PE to 7^th graders. She’s passionately committed to her pedagogy, idealistic in her world-view, and – given her Polish origin and therefore aware of the challenges at integration faced by foreign-born persons – possesses an innate protectiveness towards social outsiders. The film begins with an uncomfortable scenario wherein, on account of a series of small thefts, Carla witnesses her colleagues manipulating a couple of young students into denouncing their classmates, which soon extends towards false accusations being levelled at a student of Turkish origin. Fuelled by her idealism and intent on getting to the bottom of this issue, she decides to entrap the culprit; however, by doing so, she herself indulges in an ethically dubious act, and inadvertently sets loose an uncontrolled chain reaction that puts her in conflict with many of her fellow teachers, some of the students and nearly all their parents. Benesch put in a stunning performance, rippling with emotional turmoil, arresting intensity, and a growing sense of helplessness, as did Leonard Stettnisch as a gifted but increasingly troubled student, in this taut work that, despite its narrative brevity, touched upon quite a few themes, including bullying, misinformation, systemic racism, privacy rights, censorship and cancel culture.

Director: Ilker Catak

Genre: Drama/Thriller

Language: German

Country: Germany