Haganenet (aka "The Kindergarten Teacher")

IDF Animals (continued but not contained), and the Oracle Wunderkind

My favorite of the three Lapid films I've seen to date (Synonyms might be the best; Ahed's Knee will mark my fourth), 2015's Haganenet sets the mystical alongside the realist — I call this interlock 'realistic' — in its story of sensitive poetry reading and analysis, whereby a kindergartener named Yoav seems to be beamed extraordinary verse from some 'other place' outside known or at least acknowledged spectrums. His kindergarten teacher builds a rapport with Yoav on these lines, talented poet that she herself is; henceforth the film builds towards a dramatic conclusion and the most impressive final shot I've witnessed since my most recent viewing of Akerman's Jeanne Dielman. 

A note on the title: I have no idea what it means and am having a pretty tough time tracking down the Hebrew, let alone the translation and transliteration. I thought perhaps "The Hagan Family" but no longer recall why I think this should be so — if any reader can assist, I'll gladly update this text. Kino Lorber went with "The Kindergarten Teacher" — for me a turn-off, as it brings to mind perfumed festival-Euro-Trash which will later run for a few weeks at New York's Angelika. It turns out this couldn't be farther from the truth, though — Lapid's is a rigorous auteur cinema, not to be taken by its tight/loose compositions which Pedro Costa once described as "Cahiers du Cinéma shots."

Note too the heart-fluttering naptime sequences, evoking les fées fantastiques or the child's bubbling slumber in JLG's Film Socialisme. •

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Other writing at Cinemasparagus on the films of Nadav Lapid:

Lama? / Why? [2014]

Haganenet [2015]

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