Class Enemy

Nuša is German teacher and class teacher for the graduating class. She is leaving to go on maternity leave and introduces her class to their new teacher Robert. He is a little older than Nuša and seems a bit stand-offish. “Learning isn't the same as knowing.” and “Wanting to do something isn't the same as being able to do something.” With these sentences, uttered in German, he introduces himself and his educational concept. Sabina asks him “Why are we alive”, and as a reply he explains the development of human civilisation. Later he tells her that, had she been his student longer, she would have known the answer already. Robert wants to help them become mature and responsible people. One day, when he hears Sabina playing the piano, he leaves the teacher's lounge and slips into the unattended classroom – unnoticed at first – and listens to her. However, Sabina's classmate Maruša notices the two of them. Later, when they talk about her future, Robert tells Sabina: “You're better at playing the piano then at speaking German.”, whereupon she leaves the room, drowned in tears. After a few days, he has to tell his class that Sabina has committed suicide. This shock triggers a different kind of “class struggle”. From now on, the entire class, especially Šela, hold their teacher responsible for this tragedy and even call him a “Nazi”. A particularly hurtful reproach considering the crimes committed by the Nazis in Slovenia after 1942. Whether the students are even aware of that part of their past remains ambivalent in the film. How do you deal with grief? Who is responsible for Sabina's death? What can you really know about the reasons for such an act? Should you turn a person's death into a lesson? The film concentrates on all of these questions and the rationalizations, coping strategies and attempts at finding answers. It shows – beyond the cliché – with as much acrimony as thoughtfulness, what it means to be a student today and what it means to be a teacher today.