Film Shapes

The Teachers' Lounge was Germany's entrant for Best International (Foreign Language) film at the 2024 Oscars, beaten by the equally fine,  The Zone of Interest (the UK's nominee, though also in German). Leonie Benesch plays Carla Nowak, a young, slightly idealistic maths (and sports?) teacher at a primary school in Germany. There's been a spate of thefts at the school, in class as well as in the teachers' room. When a lad of Turkish origin is wrongly accused, Carla defends him and disagrees with the methods used by the school authorities. This doesn't endear her to some of her colleagues but when she finds evidence of a theft in the teachers' room, the scheiße really hits the fan.  Benesch, seen before in  The White Ribbon  and  Persian Lessons , is incredible. She really sells her sincerity and in the moments when the tension rises, her expressions are priceless. In one almost unbearable scene at a parent/teacher night, Carla is passive-aggressively confro...