With “Enclosed Society”, Sönke Wortmann made a film about parents and teachers and suggests what could be improved in the school system.
Finally real film premieres again after a long Corona break! On Wednesday, Sony Pictures invited to the comedy “Enclosed Society” (start: April 14) in the UCI cinema center at Mercedes Platz.
It is about a father (Thorsten Merten) who takes six teachers hostage in order to force his son to graduate from high school. Justus von Dohnányi (61) mimics a conservative Latin teacher, Anke Engelke (56) a quirky bogeyman, Nilam Farooq (32) the understanding trainee teacher and Florian David Fitz (47), who recently revealed that he has become a father, plays a physical education teacher.
The star of the evening, however, was director Sönke Wortmann (62), who has shown several times how to make Germans laugh with “The Moving Man” or “Mrs. Müller Must Go!”
BZ: After “Ms. Müller has to go!”, why are you dealing with the education system for the second time?
Sonke Wortmann: Back then, in 2016, it was the parents’ point of view, this time it’s the teachers, and yet it’s a similar principle. The teacher Ms. Müller actually left and wasn’t there anymore, and here it’s the father who disappears for 45 minutes, so that those who are left can tear themselves apart. Still, it shouldn’t be teacher bashing.
Do you feel more sorry for teachers?
In the film, each of them has set himself up differently. Justus von Dohnányi is completely isolated in his character and Anke Engelke as Frau Lohmann also says that it is and will remain so. Everything else is hidden. And when it comes to the young trainee teacher, played by Nilam Farooq, I wonder if she will still be as optimistic in 30 years. I feel a bit sorry for Torben Kessler as a chemistry teacher, because the others always diss him like that.
In the film, teachers even get physical, which immediately reminds you of the Will Smith case…
Yes, you always discover something new, which was often not my plan at all. I didn’t know that Chris Rock would get punched in the face. I was pretty shocked and think that’s not possible. I was surprised that Smith wasn’t expelled from the room. On the other hand, not, because something like this happened for the first time and at first everyone thought it was staged, maybe the hall stewards too.
How well can you remember your timpani?
I’ve known teachers like that, too, and everyone I talk to knows three or four of them. I also had someone like Justus von Dohnányi in English and someone like Florian David Fitz in sports. But I hadn’t had an incisive experience, school didn’t traumatize me, nor did I celebrate triumphs there. I’ve always been mediocre, far from being an A-student or failing.
Today everyone believes that you have to have a high school diploma in order to get anywhere in life. What do you think about it?
It’s always easy to talk about it when your kids aren’t struggling at school. At least that’s how it is fortunately for us. But if my son said he wanted to do an apprenticeship as a carpenter, I would be delighted.
But high school was important?
No, the main thing is that the children are happy. I also admire people who know their job well. You can judge it well with craftsmen, while in my profession it is more a matter of taste. Some like my films, others don’t. But if you can build a closet and everything fits and doesn’t crunch, that’s something very nice for me.
You first wanted to be a professional soccer player…
Sportsman is neither one nor the other, neither craft nor intellectual. I come from a working-class background, which is why it was very rare for us at the time to go to high school. But I was the best in elementary school, so there was no question of going into mining like my father. At high school I was no longer the best in my class, but it was enough.
Were your parents proud of you or not at all?
That’s what they were, they made the education for us three children possible in the first place, which I thought was great. You could have said, no, you go into mining too.
What do you think of the German school system?
It’s good that everyone has a chance first, and if you want to study, you don’t have to pay exorbitant fees like in many other countries. In terms of content, however, we can become better and more flexible.
What do you mean?
The principle still prevails that everything stays the way it is because it would have proven itself. In fact, that’s not true at all. For example, that school has to start at 8 a.m. instead of 9 a.m. You can easily forget the first hour. The kids are still in a coma. I think there is a certain lack of flexibility.
How do you think this could be improved?
I am not in the topic now to be able to offer a guide on how to improve the German school system. But let’s take chemistry for example. It’s a great offer at first, but then there are people like me who know after just a year that it’s not for me. I don’t get it and I won’t get it either. Why can’t I deselect this subject sooner to focus on subjects that suit me. Or how about inventing new subjects.
That would be?
Yoga for example. Working with my own body and soul would have been better, at least in my case, than having to cram in chemistry, physics or biology for many years.
