Notes on…

The Teachers' Lounge(2023)

Dir. Directed by İlker Çatak

Is this an allegory for some German-specific culture war and I simply don't get the reference, or is it genuinely meant to be somewhat impenetrable, contradictory and therefore deep? Notwithstanding the "Chechov's cigarette lighter" that didn't set the school on fire in the final scene, I rolled my eyes at the heavily-signposted themes in the dialogue ("proofs" vs "assertions"), the overt symbolism of the clever kid with a Rubik's Cube, the kids who seemed to understand Max Weber's philosophical conception of disenchantment, as well as the student journalists portrayed as if they were Woodwood & Bernstein.

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When one of her students is suspected of theft, teacher Carla Nowak decides to get to the bottom of the matter. Caught between her ideals and the school system, the consequences of her actions threaten to break her.