As director Ilker Çatak’s thoughtful drama reaffirms, the road to hell continues to be paved with good intentions.
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| Carla (Leonie Benesch) knows that Oskar (Leo Stettnisch) is one of her brightest students, but he's also withdrawn; she wonders how best to reach and engage him. |
At first blush, though, things seem reasonably comfortable.
The location is deliberately vague and ambiguous; this could be any school, in any city. Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) nurtures a positive, respectful and productive atmosphere in her seventh-grade classroom. Her students like her, but she doesn’t get similar “warm cozies” from much of the staff; Carla is new to the school, and many of the veteran teachers have long-established cliques in their lounge, between classes.
As the story begins, teachers have become concerned about an ongoing series of thefts: money and property, stolen from students and adults. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, suspicion falls on somebody in Carla’s class. A meeting is set up by senior teachers Thomas Liebenwerda (Michael Klammer) and Milosz Dudek (Rafael Stachowiak); Carla’s unease rises as they become increasingly insistent with seventh-grade class representatives Jenny (Antonia Küpper) and Lucas (Oscar Zickur).
Carla is dismayed when Thomas finally manipulates an answer from the children ... but, given her newcomer status, she doesn’t feel comfortable enough to voice her concerns.
The following day’s classroom activities are highlighted by one of Carla’s brightest students, Oskar (Leo Stettnisch), who solves a complex math problem involving limits.
(Pre-calculus, in seventh grade? American kids better watch out, or they’ll be eaten for lunch.)
The happy moment is interrupted by the arrival of the principal, Dr. Bettina Böhm (Anne-Kathrin Gummich), along with Liebenwerda and Dudek. What follows is inappropriately heavy-handed; the outcome reveals that one student, Ali Yilmaz (Can Rodenbostel), has an “unacceptably large” amount of money in his wallet.
That’s the worst sort of circumstantial “evidence,” and easily swatted aside by Ali’s parents, when they show up. They indignantly suggest that racism was behind their son’s being accused: an allegation that neither Böhm, Dudek or Liebenwerda can refute.
Böhm lamely justifies the “process” as being required by the school’s “zero-tolerance policy” (a contemptible blanket excuse that continues to be responsible for all manner of real-world harassment, unjust accusation and punishment).
Later, in the teachers’ lounge, Carla voices her strong disapproval; Liebenwerda once again defends the school response. The room’s atmosphere becomes brittle, and this is the best aspect of how Çatak handles his excellent cast: This seemingly minor “problem” slowly blossoms into a cancer that soon will alienate students against teachers — even the one, Carla, they’ve previously liked and trusted — and teachers against staff and each other.
Determined to prove that all her students are innocent, Carla sets a trap; her ploy proves successful, and the actual culprit’s identity is obvious. But here’s where matters become really complicated: That individual angrily denies the charge — in what most people would recognize as an overly loud and defensive manner — and accuses Carla of an illegal secret recording, which “violates personal privacy rights.”
Zero-tolerance policy, again. At which point, Çatak and Duncker’s core message becomes blindingly clear: Nothing can be accomplished — in this school, or the outside world — under the burden of so many zero tolerance policies.
“The school is like a society trapped in itself,” Çatak explains, in the film’s production notes, “where no action is taken, only a lot of dust is raised by a lot of talk, to end up with a very unsatisfactory results: Everyone is damaged.”
(That said, it’s easy to see why Germany lets the scale swing so far on this issue; memories of the stasi won’t die quickly.)
The collateral damage is crippling, since it affects the promising relationship Carla has nurtured with one of her students.
This crisis notwithstanding, the school’s student/teacher dynamics are fascinating, particularly when compared to their American counterparts. These students have a much stronger voice in all aspects from curriculum to discipline; the student reps are present at meetings that one would expect would be adults-only. (One assumes this is a progressive school, but still...)
Social media plays its usual damaging role, but even the school newspaper staff members behave more like intractable interrogators than investigative reporters willing to suss out actual truth.
And, through it all, Carla becomes trapped in a expanding whirlwind of her own creation, which threatens the stability of the school environment.
Benesch’s performance is sublime. Carla subtly shifts from the cheerful, friendly and passionate instructor we initially meet, to bewildered, then angry, then frightened and finally — worst of all — powerless. Most of this is accomplished without dialogue, solely via Benesch’s expressions, posture and eyes that eventually grow wider than we’d have thought possible.
Many of the children also stand out (and not always for positive reasons). They’re well-developed characters, and they look like seventh-graders.
Marvin Miller’s “score” is little more than plucked single strings, which heighten the developing — and quite unsettling — tension.
All this said, questions remain. One of Carla’s fellow teachers remains kind to her throughout, and they exchange a hug at a key moment. Is their relationship deeper than mere work colleagues? And what is the nature of Carla’s relationship with the man with whom she shares a videotelechat, toward the film’s beginning?
On top of which, few will be satisfied by the ambiguity of Çatak and Duncker’s concluding scene. I suspect the director would argue “That’s the way it is, in the real world,” but even so; far too many chads are left hanging. (Much as I’d like to cite a few, they’d be spoilers.)
Even so, Çatak and Duncker have an unerring sense of today’s work dynamics and relationships ... which is to say, we’re all in a bad place, given this degree of suspicion and reflexive hostility. It’s no surprise this film is Germany’s Oscar nominee for Best International Feature Film.
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