Directed by: Nadav Lapid.
Written by: Nadav Lapid.
Starring: Sarit Larry (Nira), Avi Shnaidman (Yoav Pollak), Lior Raz (Nira's husband), Jil Ben David (The Poetry Teacher), Ester Rada (Miri), Guy Oren (Asi), Yehezkel Lazarov (Amnon Pollak), Dan Toren (Aharon Pollak).
The film stars Sarit Larry as
Nira – the kindergarten teacher of the title – working is Israel with a group
of seemingly normal little 5 year old mop heads. She is married to a government
engineer – who seems nice enough, and they seem to like each other, although
passion is not something they still share. They have two kids – a son in the
army, and a daughter in high school, on her way to college soon, and too busy
to spend much time with her mother. It’s a rather mundane looking life – but certainly
not an unhappy one.
Then Nira sees one of her
pupils – Yoav (Avi Shnaidman) do something odd after school one day. He
announces “I have a poem” to his nanny, and marches back and forth while reciting
a poem about love and loss. When Nira asks the Nanny about this, she tells her
that it happens a few times a week – Yoav is apparently big on unrequited love
when he writes his poetry. Other than that though, he seems like a perfect
normal kid. So, what the hell is up this kid? Is it something supernatural or
divine? Does he understand anything that he’s saying? Nira becomes obsessed –
and starts digging into his past – the mother who left with her lover to the
states a few years ago, the uncle, also a poet, who works at a dying newspaper,
the father, who runs high end restaurants, and doesn’t care about his son’s
poetry. He and Nira disagree on just about everything except for the fact that
Yoav is a poet in a world that hates poetry. The difference is that Nira sees
this as something to be nurtured, while the father would rather it be stomped
out. He has no patience for losers and whiners – and wants his son to grow up
to live in the “real world”.
For Nira, this cannot stand.
Before she even knew of Yoav’s gift, she was already attending poetry classes
herself – the type of thing bored, middle aged people do in their spare time
once their kids don’t need them anymore. She starts reading some of Yoav’s
poetry to the class to gage their reaction – and it gets a better one than hers
ever did. She starts coming out with more elaborate plans – leading to the
thriller element in the last act, as we know that eventually, she will clash
too much with Yoav’s father, which indeed she does.
Is Yoav really that good of a
poet? I have no idea – I confess, I don’t know much about poetry, and certainly
not enough to critique poetry that was written in Hebrew, than translated for
the purposes of the movie. This, I think, is part of Lapid’s design – if Yoav
was another kind of prodigy (piano or chess perhaps, since the movies love
those kind of child prodigies), it would be easier to tell if Yoav really was a
genius, or if Nira were simply delusional (or, perhaps, both). But Lapid doesn’t
spell that out for the audience – nor much of anything else. What are we to
make of a strange scene in a bar for instance, that devolves into a hilariously
over the top dance number. The movie feels like an allegory – but of what? The
modern world, religious fundamentalism, materialism? All of the above? None of
the above. Lapid keeps things thrillingly open ended, right to the end of the
film.
What is clear is that Nira is
correct – the modern world hates poetry – and instead loves things that are crasser
than that. Does that make what Nira does right? Of course not, but it’s saying
something that in the context of the film – while you’re watching it – you almost
do want her to do precisely what she does, even though you know its idiotic.
Perhaps she knows as well – and does it anyway.
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