Opettaja

The schoolmaster believes in science, authority, man's capacity for survival, and has faith everything happens for the best.He has debates and arguments with his students, that we can't see.Danger lurks outside.Opettaja (1966) is directed by Jukka Sipilä.It's based on the play, The Pedagogue, written by James Saunders.I have not read that.This is some great drama.Pentti Siimes is phenomenal in this movie.There are no other actors, only Siimes giving his monologue.Acting can't get too much better from this.It is amazingly done,when he speaks about history and those pictures change in the background.And his reading of the story that Phipps has written.The ending is most impressive.All the students, that are no visible to the viewers, leave the classroom, and the pedagogue is left all alone.The place gets filled with darkness as the teacher begs them not to go.There is a danger outside, perhaps the beginning of a nuclear war.And the pedagogue is all alone in the world, in his classroom.