Palestinian filmmaker Farah Nabulsi was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2021 for her film The Present, and her feature debut, The Teacher, is perhaps even more impressive. One of the most adroitly written and directed political dramas in recent memory, The Teacher struggles to balance its narrative threads but never loses sight of the intention of the story being told and images being constructed.
The Teacher Review
The Teacher follows a Palestinian schoolteacher who is forced to choose between his commitment to political resistance and the safety of himself and those he loves, including a student with whom he forms a fatherly bond and an aid worker with whom he finds unexpected kinship. It’s a simple story but one that is told in a way that reveals deeper layers of meaning and emotion if you are willing to explore them.
What makes The Teacher work so well is how invested it gets the audience in the character-driven aspects of the story. The first twenty minutes warm us up to the community and introduce us to the characters only to snatch that tranquility away. Yet, it never feels like Nabulsi is being manipulative or tugging at the heartstrings simply to make a political point; it feels like she is telling a legitimately good story with meaning to it.
Admittedly, the pacing of The Teacher does falter a bit. The second act drags a bit as we are thrown into a dilemma of “will-they-won’t-they.” Nabulsi also struggles to balance the multiple storylines, like the external conflict, the protagonist’s internal strife, and the romantic subplot. However, by the end of the movie, everything comes together in a way that is quite affecting.
While The Teacher might have devolved into melodrama in other hands, the subtle work of Nabulsi and her cast keep this dramatic thriller feeling firmly grounded. Lead actor Saleh Bakri (The Band’s Visit) gives what will certainly go down as one of the year’s best and most unsung performances. In the first two-thirds of the film, it’s a gripping, thrilling turn, only for it to become something full of crushing sadness and despair in the final act.
In the supporting cast, Imogen Poots (Green Room) is fine, if unspectacular, in her role, although the way the role is written deserves some praise. A recognizable white star in a movie like this seems like the recipe for a white savior trope, but that couldn’t be further from what Poots’s role in the film is. Bakri’s protagonist is firmly the propulsive force in this story, and Poots allows him to be that — the mark of a gifted supporting turn. Also worthy of note is young actor Muhammad Abed El Rahman, whose emotions are often just as powerful as Bakri’s, if not more so.
One of the things that stands out about The Teacher is how unimposing yet unabashed it is with its politics. Nabulsi doesn’t beat audiences over their heads with the sociopolitical context, delivering it through the actions of the antagonist and other means like radio broadcasts the characters listen to. There’s not a heavy reliance on expositional dialogue telling the audience how they should feel because the story and visuals are powerful enough to draw viewers to this conclusion without having to spoon-feed it to them.
Nabulsi made the brave choice to shoot the movie in the West Bank, and this lends itself to some striking and harrowing imagery. Seeing this drama unfold against the backdrop of this destruction is what lends the film a different context and gives the audience a new perspective on this story than they might have otherwise had. Again, images speak louder than words, and Nabulsi’s movie is a perfect example of that concept in action.
Is The Teacher worth watching?
Indeed, this is exactly what makes The Teacher so effective and provocative. Nabulsi is genuinely interested in engaging the audience. She wants to make viewers think about this situation and its context in a way that may challenge them to rethink their perspective. It’s the rare political film that feels like it doesn’t simply exist to preach to the choir, and it deserves a lot of praise for that.
The Teacher hits theaters on April 11.
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