KinoFest: The German Film Festival
The Red Carpet, Shangri la Plaza Cinema
Besieged by a series of thefts in a local school where pupils and even teaching staff are suspects, The Teacher's Lounge explores the length a newly hired idealistic math teacher would go to expose injustice in their diverse community. The admin zeroes in on the immigrant students as suspects, now known as racial profiling. Yet when teacher Carla herself becomes a victim of theft, she goes all out to accuse the perpetrator (the staff is the mother of one of her bright students) whom she caught on video using the webcam of her laptop. It sends the entire high school into a web of suspicion, speculation, with a myriad of lies and half truths.
The film unfolds within the claustrophobic walls of the school, without any semblance nor background into the lives of the characters especially Carla. We can ascertain she is idealistic, righteous and wants fairness in everything she does. Nothing personal in terms of relationship status is revealed about her.
The tale progresses at a slow pace but is packed with gripping drama as the investigation takes its toil on the students, the other teachers and especially on Carla. Her idealism and her strong sense of justice is questioned, examined and put to the test as she weaves through the fallout of her accusation. Students acting out in rage specifically Oskar whose mother is the 'suspected' thief, the student council publishing a scathing article about her integrity, the other teachers distancing themselves from her, and even a disruptive PTA meeting.
All these heavy emotions don't go lightly as the audience is also torn between rooting for Carla yet at the same time, also maligning the deceptive method she used to catch the thief. The ensemble cast of mostly kids and the actress portraying teacher Carla do well to project their characters insecurities and fears. The film concludes without any firm resolution, yet it leaves a lasting impression about our own biased assumptions about how we treat other human beings especially when so called 'bad' things happen to us.