comedy
«Contra»: Late repentance of the older white man
Christoph Maria Herbst (r) as Professor Pohl and Nilam Farooq as Naima. Photo: – / Constantin Film Verleih GmbH / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
In Sönke Wortmann’s film “Contra”, a student is openly discriminated against by her professor in the lecture hall. As atonement, he is supposed to prepare her for a debating competition.
It is a popular film topic: two people are deeply disagreeable, but have to cooperate due to external constraints and get to know surprising sides in each other.
This is what Sönke Wortmann’s comedy “Contra” is all about, which brings a serious subject to life in an entertaining and yet profound way. A cynical rhetoric professor covers the student Naima in the lecture with racist remarks and makes fun of her. In order to get the disciplinary committee merciful, it should therefore prepare them for a nationwide debating competition. A difficult undertaking, because the resistance to cooperation is quite high for both of them.
The basis is the French film “The brilliant Mademoiselle Neila”, which was released in 2018. At the time, Daniel Auteuil played the eloquent professor who drove the student Neila down because of her Algerian roots. An older, embittered white man and a young woman with a migration background from the notorious suburbs – an exciting constellation for Constantin Film Produktion that they wanted to transfer to German conditions.
Instead of Paris, “Contra” is playing in Frankfurt am Main. Christoph Maria Herbst (“The first name”) embodies the rhetoric professor Richard Pohl. For the role of the student, the choice fell on Nilam Farooq, known from films such as “Du Sie Er & Wir” and as a long-time TV commissioner in the ZDF crime series “SOKO Leipzig”.
A dream come true for Naima with her law degree. She wants to become a lawyer and hopes that this will enable her to offer her mother and brothers a better life. Finally arrive in Germany and not only be tolerated with the right to stay! And then that: “In my culture, punctuality still means something”, throws Professor Pohl at Naima when she arrives a few minutes late for the lecture. Naima’s fellow students film Pohl’s embarrassing appearance, which soon causes a stir and horror on social media.
After this painful experience, Naima wants nothing more to do with the professor. But then she realizes the chance that participation in the debating competition offers her, especially since she is very talented rhetorically. Pohl, too, initially has no desire to train the student, but sees no other way of avoiding his threatened suspension. Reluctantly, both get involved in the joint training and get to know surprising sides of each other. Everything is going well until Naima finds out the real reasons for the professor’s willingness to help: Not conviction and remorse, but self-interest.
“Contra” cannot avoid some clichés. But puns and sensitivity for subtle nuances make the comedy worth seeing. In an entertaining way, the film shows that it’s not just the big things that express racism and discrimination. There are many small incidents, rash remarks, looks, behaviors that exclude and hurt people. No “You can still say” or “It wasn’t meant that way!” – here the film takes a clear position and makes it clear that every person has a dignity that no one should violate, not even jokingly.
Contra, Germany 2020, 103 min., Age rating 12+, by Sönke Wortmann, with Christoph Maria Herbst, Nilaam Farooq and Hassan Akkouch.