El Salón De Profesores

I am a high school teacher, and this movie made me reflect on the educator's place in school. The film takes me to Plato's Republic, where it presents the dilemma "it is better to be than to appear virtuous." The protagonist leads us to moments of anguish with her quest for justice, honesty, and virtue in an environment governed by conflicting and often cruel moral issues. Actress Leonie Benesch's performance is confident, brilliantly conveying the emotions experienced by the character. For now, I consider "Das Lehrerzimmer" a real contender to win the award for Best Foreign Film in 2024; it's my choice.

Being German, i actually really dislike most of my nation's dramas, mostly for their bleak depiction of nearly everything. An unrewarding depression mood, intertwined with bursts of out-of-place screams and violence. But this movie hit different - in the most frustatingly positive ways possible.

The central character is the overambitious teacher Carla Novak who began to teach at a German highschool, being silently confronted and appalled by the zero tolerance politics of the institution. The plot revolves around the dark grey areas of such a strict set of rules, as a series of thefts begin to disturb the carefully constructed but fragile peace. Racial profiling. Anauthorized searches. Between all of this stands our protagonist. And then she seemingly finds the culprit... with even more consequences she herself could not have imagined.

First of all - nearly every character can be seen as unlikeable in a certain way at the end of the movie, even Carla. Students. Teachers. Parents. Everyone hits different. Everybody get's the chance to shine in a negative light. And different ideals and opinions clash. That's a strange achievement. And it's strangely a good one.

The actors are playing their parts so well and natural. Especially the dynamic between lead Leonie Benesch's character and Leonards Stettnisch's Oskar is a stand-out. At some points there are not even words needed - just some uncomfortable staring contests.

The movie sticks close to the people but is cold trough its use of muted blue-white colors and beautifully captured through a claustrophobic 4:3 lens. The music is simple and effective with a minimalistic silence, a dissonance for an overly stressful confrontation and pompous score for the outro.

Ambition, failings and social dynamics are going hand in hand. They substitute the topic of theft quite fast through the mid point of the movie. Who does support the other one's believes and who is there to challenge them? Is everything well-meant actually good?

And we get an open end. Maybe to open. No big scale thriumph over the other. No real culprit and no real solution. Just an empty school. An empty microcosm that was inhabited by themes of communicational misteps, distrust, mobbing, fake personalities, moral ambiguity, ... you name it.

You may be leaving the cinema with different opinions and ideas. And that's the best thing a movie can achieve. Even if it isn't going to satisfy all movie goers

Prepare for school. Watch it. Be frustrated.

It was never easy to be a good teacher, but it's even harder today with virtually everyone having a political agenda. A young teacher has a series of thefts in her class. She reports it to the administration, but they only make things worse. She discreetly tries to get to the bottom of it herself, only to make things still worse. Lots of fingers are pointed in a lot of different directions. Anyone who has ever been falsely accused will find this a very disturbing movie. It is so well acted that it seems like a documentary, rather than fiction. This film and AMERICAN FICTION both show what horrible little prigs today's young people have been turned into. They are basically good and want to do the right thing, but they know in their heart of hearts that they are morally superior. This movie made me glad that I am not a teacher today. This is a rivetingly suspenseful movie that is quite harrowing at times. It asks some disturbing questions and doesn't provide easy answers. This is easily one of the year's best films in a year of strong contenders. This is a German film in the German language, but it could just as easily take place anywhere in the Western world. This is a movie that thinking people can appreciate.

I am teacher. I saw this admirable film only from this perspective, admiring its high realism, recognizing ordinary, almost every day crisis, understanding the power , bigger and bigger , decade by decade, of students , their cruelty - not different by the characters of William Golding in The Lord of Flies.

I real loved the performance of Leonie Benesch. I appreciated the fair crafted tension. And the end , I believe, is pure great.

The story - chains of a clash. A terrible one because it is between values, truths, the victim being the honesty, noble intentions, the spirit of dedication and justice of a young teacher, devouted, maybe in too high measure, to her job.

The young actors are just fantastic.

At the end, the hope than the Oscar for Best International Feature Film goes to Das Lehrerzimmer.

Modern German cinema haven't been on my radar as while there are a few good German flicks coming around time to time, I haven't been fully wowed by them for some time. I had no idea what to expect going into this movie but this movie was frustrating but in a good way.

It's an interesting character study that explores themes of racial profiling, unauthorized searches, and the school system. Throughout, the camerawork use of 4:3 lens felt purposeful to surround the settings and tone and the direction is pretty strong. The directing, setting, sound designs and pacing help to capture the uncomfortable and intense atmosphere that is being surrounded around the environment and within the characters and the movie does a really good work on capturing the essence.

The characters can be frustrating and unlikeable to an extent but instead of being unbearable, the portrayal of the unlikeable and frustrating characters felt purposeful because of the themes and writing concepts that were explored. Not often where movies are able to have many characters unlikeable, yet, managed to still be emotionally investing and engaging. All of the performances are amazing especially the lead performance from Leonie Benesch as Benesch is absolutely amazing. Even the child actors are great as well.

Many of the social dynamics were well-explored within the simple setting, the pacing is great, and there are some good dialogue moments that genuinely helps to build the intense situations and realism it portrays. There are a few issues I had with the movie which is that I felt certain dialogue moments from the child performances felt a little too fake or staged and there are certain choices I thought could have been approached differently.

Overall, a fascinating and frustrating movie.