Review of 'The Teacher': the Palestinian educator becomes a dignity lighthouse

During an apparently normal school day, Basem (Saleh Bakri), an educator dedicated in the West Bank with hypnotizing eyes, encourages his student Yacoub (Mahmoud Bakri) to return to normal with his studies and “recover control of his life.” But any autonomy that the young man can re -evaluate seems useless in the face of the Israeli occupation that hinders any sense of normality. Yacoub aspirations for the future have been replaced by anger, which consume everything and justified after spending two years in prison.

That conflicting and burning feeling of desire to advance despite the fact that it is constantly remembered that its existence is devalued drives the characteristic debut of Farah Nabulsi “the teacher”, even when occasionally stumbles with its most melodramatic aspects. The 2020 short film nominated in the Oscar de Nabulsi “The Present” related the negotiation of a Palestinian father through an Israeli control point dehumanizing along with his little daughter. (Bakri also played the protagonist in that accusation of the size of a bite).

In the first minutes of “The Master”, Yacoub ends up dead at the hands of an Israeli settler, leaving behind his younger teenage brother Adam (Muhammad Abed Elrahman). Yacoub's challenge seems to be transferred directly to Adam, whose worldview has turned. “The Teacher” was shot in the West Bank and the aggregate landscapes and houses captured by photography director Gilles Porte feel faithful to the Palestinian life, which is a visual statement that called him.

Nabulsi, unfortunately, confuses the story with multiple subtramas, some inevitated performances and artificial dialogues in English. It is Lisa (Imogen Poots), a very significant NGO worker who is romantically involved with Basem, and the Cohens, a Jewish couple whose IDF soldier born in the United States has been kidnapped in the search for imprisoned Palestinians. Basem is secretly part of this operation.

These supplements make “the teacher” blur in his way to a larger geopolitical image. However, what remains consistent through all the tangents is Bakri's performance as Basem, radiating a quiet tranquility, not the type that comes naturally, but an inner peace that forces to exudate to save lives, their own and those of young people like Adam. If it gives to fury that undoubtedly courses through it, then his personal suffering (revealed in flashbacks) would be in vain. The nucleus of “The Master” is Basem's relationship with his student, a substitute child to protect.

In the middle of the film, Basem and Adam share a afflicted hug of pain after the child threatens to hurt his brother's murderer. From a shot, Nabulsi and the Mike Pike editor cut Adam's desperate hands on Basem's back. The intensity with which the adolescent embraces his teacher, a father figure, helps a spectator to understand the depth of pain, imbueting “the teacher” with a moving power.

But what can you teach someone when their daily reality is so painful? When should they stand over low heat while their home is demolished? What purpose can a teacher serve in the face of these agonizing circumstances? Plenty.

That feeling of helplessness of spirit is what director Nabulsi aims to defend himself, certainly through narrative means not always effective, but with emotional sincerity. Basem's concern is not whether these children learn a single word of English, but their presence, the daily reliability that he will be there, regardless of the little strength they may have left, is the incarnation of resistance. Among the ruins, the most important school task is to live despite everything.