Nira, for her part, may be a frustrated poet sliding from midlife crisis into mental instability. Yoav may be, in the eyes of a reasonable viewer, an odd kid with an unusual knack for language. “Being a poet in our world is going against the nature of the world,” Nira says, and the most surprising - the most radical - aspect of “The Kindergarten Teacher” is how fiercely it defends that view.
She is concerned with the progress of Yoav’s “career,” a strange notion given his age. Nira introduces her protégé to the work of his precursors, including the Israeli “national poet” Chaim Nachman Bialik. It’s hard for a Hebrewless reader of English subtitles to judge their literary merits, but the film’s internal experts, Nira included, are impressed enough with their linguistic polish and thematic sophistication to elevate them above mere verbal child’s play. At other times, as the camera tiptoes around conversations and peeks over shoulders, you feel like a spy or a voyeur, privy to vaguely inappropriate information.Įxperiencing Yoav’s poems is its own kind of eavesdropping. At times you feel like a child observing the grown-up world, peering up at legs and hands, trying to decode the meaning of gestures and words. The director and his cinematographer, Shai Goldman, favor shallow-focus compositions and low, odd angles. “The Kindergarten Teacher” works perfectly well as a subtle, astute psychological drama, venturing into thriller territory toward the end. Lapid keeps Nira on the near side of normalcy. It’s possible to read signs of unusual intelligence in his expressions, but his most prominent feature is a face that seems created to invite a grandmother’s pinches.įor most of the movie, Mr. The budding bard is in most respects a perfectly ordinary child, roughhousing and practicing swear words with his best pal, playing in the sandbox and demanding snacks when he’s hungry.
It’s always good to recognize and celebrate what is special in a child. At first, like any conscientious teacher, she is solicitous and encouraging. Nira is startled and intrigued, and the evolution of her interest in Yoav drives the film’s suspenseful, unnerving, bizarre and strangely believable plot. “I have a poem,” he announces and recites a brief, elliptical love lyric, pacing back and forth as his nanny writes his words in a notebook. One of her pupils, a cherubic, sleepy-eyed boy named Yoav (Avi Shnaidman), is being picked up at the end of the school day. Then one day she witnesses a startling act of creation. As a hobby - or perhaps as a vehicle for unexpressed ambitions and frustrated desires - she attends a poetry workshop with other amateur versifiers.
She has a son in the army, a daughter in high school and a devoted husband (Lior Raz) with a decent government job.
The kindergarten teacher professional#
The teacher is Nira (Sarit Larry), a woman with a warm professional manner and pleasant, ordinary middle-class life. Can a 5-year-old boy be a literary genius? And if so, how might his precocious gift be nurtured and protected? These are, on the surface, among the main questions posed by “ The Kindergarten Teacher,” a self-assured, remarkably powerful film from the Israeli writer-director Nadav Lapid.