Nira, a kindergarten teacher, lives a modest life with her Husband, an engineer, and two children. Nina has a passion for poetry, something that her husband doesn't share, which leaves Nina feeling neglected due to his lack of enthusiam. One day in class, Nina discovers that one of her students, Yoav, has prodigy-type talent for poetry. Inspired by the potential of this five year-old boy, Nina takes him under her wing, eventually going to extreme measures to protect his talent from the world around him. Nadav Lapid's The Kindergarten Teacher is a quietly unsettling character study thats strongest aspect is the oblique nature of its thematic and dramatic elements. For those not familiar with Nadav Lapid, he is a minimalist filmmaker in terms of drama who forces the audience to pay attention to every intricate detail. The Kindergarten Teacher is a woman who feels overlooked and undervalued, viewing Yoav as her potential salvation. His natural gift for poetry is something she does not possess, which makes her dedicated to helping him reach his true potential. Everyone around the young boy simply doesn't understand the talent he possesses, which leaves Nina becoming more and more desperate to protect his artistic talent. From Yoav's nanny stealing his words for her own poetry assignment, to Yoav's father shunning the idea of his son wasting his time on poetry, Nina grows increasingly frustrated and desperate to protect this talent. As the film progresses, Lapid masterfully unravels the darker aspects of this character, using unmotivated camera movements at times, as if to symbolize Nira's fragile psyche. The use of depth of field in this film is stunning, with my favortie aspect being the point-of-view shots from NIna's perspective, capturing the innocence she sees in this child. While the film's denoucement is sure to frustrate some filmgoers, I'd argue it works beautifully due to Lapid's oblique storytelling. While every character in the film opposes Nira's viewpoint, the film does make it clear that Yoav is an incredibly talented artist for his age, which makes the film work both as a dark character study and a parable for the death of art in the modern age. The final shot further illustrated the parable theory, which sees a young Yoav sitting down, soaking in loud pop music which blasts in the background. Nadav Lapid's The Kindergarten Teacher is another stellar effort from the Israli filmmaker which manages to challenge and satisfy.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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