Kästner classic
“The Flying Classroom”: new edition with girl power
The classic children’s and young adult book “The Flying Classroom” has already been made into a film three times. Now a fourth version is coming to German cinemas. photo
© Stephanie Kulbach/Leonine/dpa
Tom Schilling as a highly understanding and empathetic educator, Hannah Herzsprung with exalted glasses, plus many great child actresses: a successful new Erich Kästner adaptation.
Three film adaptations of the classic children’s and young adult book “The Flying One Classroom” from 1933 already existed: in 1954, the author of the book, Erich Kästner, worked on the adaptation himself. This was followed by: the famous variant from 1973, with Joachim Fuchsberger, and the 2003 edition: a strong Sebastian Koch in the role of Robert “non-smoker” Uthoff.
Twenty years have passed and the famous template has lost none of its appeal; and the cinema still enjoys the material. For the first time, a female director has now taken on the “flying classroom” – the Swede Carolina Hellsgård, who lives in Berlin, is known for her zombie work “Endzeit”. Playing: a great Tom Schilling, a strong Trystan Pütter, a funny Hannah Herzsprung. There are also congenial young actors like Leni Deschner, who plays the leading role of 13-year-old Martina. As well as a striking number of other actresses.
The plot
Martina lives with her mother (Jördis Triebel) and little brother in an inhospitable high-rise housing estate that seems gray even by Berlin standards. The chance of a scholarship to the South Tyrolean Johann-Sigismund-Gymnasium gives the accomplished skater hope of escape. But once she gets there, in idyllic Tyrol, she first has to get used to all the bizarre rules. The students at the renowned secondary school are strictly divided: here the city children from the boarding school, there the “externals” from the rural town of Kirchberg.
And, very important: people don’t mix; instead, they are enemies of each other. Martina shares the boarding school room with the amiable and always cool Jo (Lovena Börschmann Ziegler); and the good-natured Matze (Morten Völlger) and the noble Uli (Wanja Valentin Kube) soon belong to their new peer group. This group gives Martina a little support in her new surroundings – but it is more than questionable whether the eternal arguments between top and bottom, between the village and the boarding school, can be resolved through a joint theater project (The Flying Classroom). There is also a dramatic situation in which it is not so much a classroom as it is the slender Uli who is learning to fly (albeit involuntarily).
Emotional scenes
Tom Schilling is almost too sweet as Justus Bökh, head of the boarding school; And yet in two or three scenes he brings tears to your eyes: He takes such a touching approach to the newcomer Martina, even offering her math tutoring (during the holidays) so that she can pass the entrance exam. The reconnection between old school and band mates Bökh and Uthoff is also moving.
Uthoff (as enigmatic as he is casual: Trystan Pütter), called “non-smoker”, lives in seclusion in an old railway carriage, but proves to be another source of support for the kids over the course of the film. In general, the adults here appear less than stern opponents of the children; Thanks to Erich Kästner’s philanthropy. A bit out of line is a bizarre, colorful Hannah Herzsprung, who wears oversized glasses, as Schilling’s overwhelmed, sometimes deranged colleague. You feel a bit sorry for Herzsprung, as her character, for all her fun, has something of a slapstick quality about her. Especially since the appearance must have been of no small importance to her: her father, Bernd Herzsprung, was in the ’73 film version of the story.
Cinema to think about
Like its slightly longer predecessor from 2003 (director: Tomy Wigand), this new adaptation is not exactly short for smaller children’s eyes and ears: there are a good 90 minutes on the clock. But Kästner’s book also simply gives a lot. And also stimulates thought through this version for the cinema. On topics such as friendship, growing up, the difference between courage and cleverness, and the realization that sometimes both are needed: “Only when the brave have become wise and the clever have become brave will what has often been erroneously stated become noticeable : a progress of humanity”.
There are other succinct Kästner quotes that you will take home with you, along with many touching and some exciting moments, from this successful reinterpretation of a classic (“a novel for children”). Perhaps most importantly: “Only those who grow up and remain children are human.”
The Flying Classroom, D 2023, 90 min., FSK from 0, by Carolina Hellsgård, with Tom Schilling, Hannah Herzsprung, Leni Deschner