How far should a person go to cultivate great art in others? If you knew without a shadow of a doubt the next Mozart or Picasso, would you ignore everyone else and fight to give the world its next visionary? With his second film, The Kindergarten Teacher, writer-director Nadav Lapid (Policeman) crafts a story of obsession for the sake of art.
The eponymous teacher Nira (Sarit Larry) discovers one of her young students, 5-year-old Yoav (Avi Shnaidman), has a tendency to pace back and forth then espouse original poetry that captivates his teacher and his nanny, Miri (Esther Rada). While the nanny uses Yoav’s verses for her acting auditions, Nira presents Yoav’s words as her own to her poetry group. As Yoav’s poems continue, Nira realizes his gift has gone unpraised and deserves attention, which Yoav doesn’t receive from his restaurateur father.
Nira’s love of Yoav and his poetry becomes increasingly hostile and borderline sexual. Nira leaves relations with her husband to receive a call from Yoav so he can dictate his latest poem to her. Lapid shows Nira’s quest to present Yoav’s material as a way for her to escape her humdrum life. The more she engages in Yoav’s art, the more she discovers who she really wishes she were, and what she’s been missing in her own, complacent cycle of an unfulfilling job and boring nights with her spouse.
Unfortunately Lapid’s script doesn’t make Yoav’s poetry all that great. While it is impressive a child of his age could create poetry of any kind, the work doesn’t match Nira’s willingness to give up her life as she knows it to celebrate his talent. Whenever Nira or Yoav presents his words, there’s one side that admires them greatly, while the other side reacts violently. It’s hard to believe any audience could experience the former given this simplistic poetry, but even more ridiculous to believe it could incite such rage.