Mr Bachmann and his Class | Little White Lies

Mr Bach­mann and his Class

09 Dec 2022 / Released: 09 Dec 2022

Words by David Jenkins

Directed by Maria Speth

Elderly man in a green cap and scarf sitting at a desk, surrounded by various objects including a guitar and a box.
Elderly man in a green cap and scarf sitting at a desk, surrounded by various objects including a guitar and a box.
4

Anticipation.

Three hour-plus doc on provincial German school? Where do we sign?

4

Enjoyment.

High canon entry for the "inspirational teacher" sub-genre, but with none of the clichés.

4

In Retrospect.

Stirring, unsentimental and an immersive pleasure from end to end.

Maria Speth’s inti­mate non-fic­tion epic pro­files a spiky but saint­ly Ger­man school­teacher and his students.

As far as the cin­e­mat­ic canon of inspi­ra­tional school teach­ers go, beanie-hat­ted paragon of chill, Deit­er Bach­mann, is right up there. This obser­va­tion­al non-fic­tion epic sees film­mak­er Maria Speth and (you would imag­ine) her tiny tech­ni­cal team embed­ded with­in a class at a junior school locat­ed in the west Ger­man indus­tri­al berg of Stad­tal­len­dorf, an area which attracts a large migrant com­mu­ni­ty, many of whom we dis­cov­er are using the spot as a way sta­tion en route to their final destination.

On a super­fi­cial lev­el, Speth’s film offers inti­mate insight into the nuances of teach­ing and the eth­i­cal bal­anc­ing act that comes with attempt­ing to imbue knowl­edge into the minds of an eth­ni­cal­ly and behav­ioural­ly diverse range of kids. The film is inter­est­ed very lit­tle in the bureau­cra­cy of teach­ing, and it nev­er appears as if Bach­mann is des­per­ate­ly attempt­ing to mould these chil­dren in the image of a mono­lith­ic nation­al cur­ricu­lum. Instead, he engages his charges in a series of wide rang­ing dis­cours­es in which the basic stric­tures of lib­er­al moral­i­ty are deliv­ered with com­ic stealth.

We are intro­duced to Bach­mann as he polite­ly demands all his chil­dren walk out of the class­room and return in silence, nev­er rais­ing his voice, but also not receiv­ing any clap-backs from the abid­ing stu­dents. Any sense that he’s a bru­tal dis­ci­pli­nar­i­an are swift­ly tossed out, as the lessons them­selves com­prise of wide-rang­ing and inclu­sive dis­cus­sions that sel­dom involve a pen and paper. In fact, rather than a black­board, Bachmann’s tool of choice is his trusty acoustic gui­tar (stay with me!), as he reg­u­lar­ly leads the class in song and then clev­er­ly empow­ers them to decon­struct the lyrics.

The film’s dura­tion – three hours and 36 mins – works very much in its favour, and it real­ly comes into its own by the third hour when we have cul­ti­vat­ed rela­tion­ships with the pro­tag­o­nists and have come to care deeply about the paths of their devel­op­ment. A sequence in which Bach­mann meets indi­vid­ual stu­dents accom­pa­nied with a par­ent to offer and update on progress is per­haps the moment where his sub­tle modus operand comes to the fore, as he is not afraid to lob­by (“fight” is too strong a word for it) for what he tru­ly believes the kids – rather than him­self – want to do in life.

Beyond doc­u­ment­ing the hard, at-the-coal­face process­es of school­ing, the film also offers a cel­e­bra­tion of Euro­pean cul­tur­al diver­si­ty and puts paid to xeno­pho­bic tabloid sen­sa­tion­al­ism about how we should fear out­siders. Bach­mann him­self seems to take great joy from both cel­e­brat­ing and chal­leng­ing the range of eth­nic­i­ties and belief sys­tems present in his class – he even for­mu­lates sim­ple meth­ods of com­mu­ni­ca­tion for those who don’t quite have a work­able han­dle on the Ger­man lan­guage. The film says to us that relax­ation, empa­thy and open­ness is more than enough to bridge any divides. He makes every­thing look very easy, and the film makes us under­stand what a laud­able human qual­i­ty that can be. 

A few behind-the-scenes moments dur­ing week­ends and hol­i­days depict a more per­son­al side to the oth­er­wise-enig­mat­ic Bach­mann, but the pic­ture that Speth paints of him is as some­one who is casu­al­ly fix­at­ed with this occu­pa­tion – that the process of teach­ing is seeped into his very being and con­sumes his thoughts. When you watch him work, it’s hard not to pon­der whether his sub­lime diplo­mat­ic skills could be put to grander use, but by then end of the film, you realise that what we’re see­ing is the per­fect sym­bio­sis between a per­son and their cho­sen métier.

The knee-jerk styl­is­tic com­par­i­son to make is to the insti­tu­tion­al pro­file films of the great Fred­er­ick Wise­man, and Speth does pho­to­graph with a sim­i­lar dis­pas­sion­ate, unob­tru­sive gaze. Yet the film will like­ly hit hard­er with fans of Nico­las Philibert’s 2002 film Être et Avoir, which cap­tures a year in the life of a one-class school in the French provinces. One images that Bach­mann and the inspi­ra­tional teacher from that film, Georges Lopez, would have a lot to talk about.

You might like

Accessibility Settings

Text

Applies the Open Dyslexic font, designed to improve readability for individuals with dyslexia.

Applies a more readable font throughout the website, improving readability.

Underlines links throughout the website, making them easier to distinguish.

Adjusts the font size for improved readability.

Visuals

Reduces animations and disables autoplaying videos across the website, reducing distractions and improving focus.

Reduces the colour saturation throughout the website to create a more soothing visual experience.

Increases the contrast of elements on the website, making text and interface elements easier to distinguish.