19 February, 2024

The Teachers' Lounge

I saw The Teachers' Lounge (Das Lehrerzimmer) yesterday and it was excellent. Leonie Benesch plays a novice teacher, Carla Nowak, whose school is suffering from a rash of thefts. If I don't write about it again, then I will say that Benesch is fantastic here. She looked familiar and I read that she was in Babylon Berlin. Aha!

Leonard Stettnisch plays the class smart kid, Oskar, and he too is great here. He becomes angry and conflicted when his mother loses her job after his teacher levels accusations at her. The ending when the cops are removing him from the school as he sits in his chair palanquin style was perfect.

Director İlker Çatak did a really nice job of keeping the focus on the interpersonal conflict instead of trying to solve the mystery of the thefts.

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