In ‘The Teachers' Lounge,’ it’s the faculty that gets taught a lesson

Oscar-nominated German thriller uses school as a microcosm of society

One teacher can make a difference. That’s what we’re always told in inspirational movies like “Dangerous Minds” and “Stand and Deliver,” about one idealistic teacher who changes the lives of her students. The German thriller “The Teachers’ Lounge,” which has been nominated for an Oscar for Best International Feature Film, tells of another idealistic, good-hearted teacher.

Only the decisions she makes, well-intentioned as they are, lead to disaster for everyone in the school. Ilker Catak’s film opens with the chaotic sound of a school orchestra tuning up, and you get the sense of something that, once it starts, can’t be stopped.

Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is the teacher, a new hire at a progressive German secondary school, where the administrator talks about a “zero tolerance policy” and the school council has a couple of students on it to present the illusion that the children have some kind of power.

As the film opens, the school is on edge following a rash of petty thefts. Two students are brought into a room and asked to identify which students they think could be the thief. In Carla’s classroom, administrators frisk the boys looking for the stolen money. “It’s voluntary, of course,” the students are told. “But if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” 

It’s here that we realize that “The Teachers’ Lounge” is not so much a realistic drama about life in a school. It’s an allegory about modern society, about how soft power is applied to get citizens to do what they’re told.

We identify with the panic in Carla’s eyes, her knowledge that lines are being crossed. But then someone steals money out of Carla’s jacket. She has persuasive (but not conclusive) evidence from a laptop video that the culprit is not one of the students, but a beloved school staffer (Eva Labou). That staffer is also the mother of a bright student, Oskar (Leonard Stettnisch) who is being bullied in Carla’s class.

Carla accuses the staffer, at first privately and then publicly. The staffer angrily denies the charge, and the controversy sends ripples of tension throughout the teachers, who choose sides in the dispute. The acrimony is mirrored in Carla’s classroom, where she gradually loses control as some students bully Oskar as the son of a thief, while others leap to his defense and turn on Carla. Catak repeatedly uses a POV shot of Carla looking at a sea of angry, defiant children, a horror movie image for anyone who’s ever had to speak in class.

I called “The Teachers’ Lounge” a “thriller,” but it’s really more of a “dreader,” as one bad decision compounds another, and Carla’s attempts to make peace at the school only make things worse. A scene of what has to be the worst parents’ night ever is a particular low point for her.

Benesch, who played Princess Cecile on “The Crown,” is terrific at showing how Carla’s kindly soul is tested beyond the breaking point, and she has a solid scene partner in young Leonard Stettnisch as Oskar, who goes from a sad little boy into something of a resistance fighter in the classroom. 

I just wish so much of “The Teachers’ Lounge” didn’t operate at the level of metaphor, that all the characters around Oskar and Carla seemed more like real adults and children, and not symbols of oppression or resistance. It’s a gripping watch, but at some point it did feel like I was being lectured to by a teacher who didn’t think their students were very bright.

“The Teachers’ Lounge” is now playing in theaters. In Madison, it opens Friday at AMC Fitchburg 18.