Release Year: 2016

Rating: 7.4/10 ( voted)

Critic's Score: /100

Director: Jan Hrebejk

Stars: Zuzana Mauréry, Zuzana Konecná, Csongor Kassai

Storyline
Since the arrival of the new teacher, Maria Drazdechova, to a Bratislava suburban school in the year of 1983, life has turned upside down for students and parents. The teacher's corrupted behavior and one of the students' suicide attempt that could be related to that matter, makes the school Principal call the students' parents for an urgent meeting that will suddenly put the future of all the families at stake. They are asked to sign a petition to move Miss Drazdechova out of the school. The teacher's high connections within the Communist Party makes everyone feel threatened, but at this point they have no choice but to make a decision: will they dare to go against Miss Drazdechova and stand up for what they believe in at any risk, or will they just remain silent and let things be?

Cast:
Zuzana Mauréry - Mária Drazdechová
Zuzana Konecná - Kucerová
Csongor Kassai - Kucera
Tamara Fischer - Danka Kucerová
Martin Havelka - Binder
Éva Bandor - Hana Binderová
Oliver Oswald - Filip Binder
Peter Bebjak - Václav Littmann
Richard Labuda - Karol Littmann
Ina Gogálová -
Monika Certezni -
Peter Bartak -
Jozef Domonkos -
Judita Hansman -
Ladislav Hrusovský -

Country: Slovakia, Czech Republic

Language: Slovak

Release Date: 3 Jan 2016

Runtime: 102 min

Trivia:
Barbora Bobulova was considered for the part of Mária Drazdechová, eventually played by Zuzana Mauréry. See more »

Author:

Rating: 8/10

First of all I'm not much a fan of dramas. But when the Cairo Film Festival was screening Teacher I thought to try something new and watch it, and was I glad I did. The story of the movies revolves around a school teacher and her class in Slovakia in 1983, apparently at that time it was under Soviet influence or ruling, who abuses her powers, helped by that fact that he got some connections that would protect her from accountability. She does so by implying or asking parents of children to do favors for here, such as doing her shopping or fixing things or such, and those who comply are given better grades, depending on the service they render her, and those who don't are harassed to no end. The situating continues for a while until Hanka -if that's how to spell it- who is a student of hers tries to commit suicide. Then Hanka's parents are done with the teacher and her abuse of power, and sign a compliant to the school. The headmistress gathers the parents of the kids and then we go back and forth between the meeting of the parents to discuss Miss Maria and flashbacks about a couple of the families and their kids. The film takes us into three families that are facing a really big problem. The highest authority of their kids future are corrupt and unjust. So most of them agree to do her favors but at some point some of them have enough and start to express their anger and want change. Then to our complete surprise we find out that they are opposed by the other parents. The opposing parents do the teacher bigger favors and as such their kids are treated specially. For that they seem to not only admit to doing her favors but to actually seeing this as no problem and a normal way to guarantee the future of their kids. So despite the fact that a kid almost killed herself they are totally apathetic to her and her parents and want the whole thing to be done with. We go a long way about this but you don't really feel bored since they go back and forth between some of the kids life and the meeting. Despite everything, and some unexpected surprise in the meeting, most of the parents simply walk away from the meeting. But then later they come in secret to sign the compliant. It gathers enough signatures and Miss Maria goes away and the class is free, the kids rejoice and everyone is happy. Then we see the last part with Miss Maria going into another class and doing the same thing over again, asking the kids about their parent's professions, in the same school or perhaps another one. Now the movie was quite well acted with excellent performance by most of the cast, especially Hanka and her parent's and Binder and Maria. The sound track was good with little music most of the time but good choices when the need arose. There were some beautiful scenes in the movie that truly made me sad and feeling for the kids who come under the power of such person, they can make you cry. And the Binder family scenes were quite strong as well and especially good. The movie made me care about those families and sympathize for them greatly which is no easy thing. The Ending was good and left both a feeling of happiness and sadness. Maybe the point that we always need to stand up to such abuse of power or it would happen to us, or maybe it was that we can't stop such abuse of power all the time, or maybe something else, I don't know. But what I know is that Hanka and her schoolmates are rid of Maria and that is, maybe, good enough

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