Netflix made its presence known at film festivals around the world this past year, producing or landing distribution for many of 2018’s most acclaimed works. At Sundance, the streaming giant acquired distribution rights to The Kindergarten Teacher, which was nominated for the festival’s grand jury prize and earned Sophia Colangelo the award for best direction in the drama category. Last month, Netflix released the film on its streaming site.
The Kindergarten Teacher is an American remake of a 2014 Israeli film directed by Nadav Lapid. Both tell the story of a kindergarten teacher who self-righteously dedicates herself to nurturing the talent of a precocious student with an uncanny gift for composing poetry. Lapid directs the Israeli original with a formal audacity intended to draw attention to itself. Within the first 15 seconds of Lapid’s version, a character conspicuously bumps into the camera filming him, and from then on, the camera functions as an almost conscious agent within the world of the film, equipped with a point of view distinctively its own and a range of movement not necessarily tethered to any character.
Colangelo pursues a more muted style in the new American version. She dresses the film in a palette of icy blues, suggesting a cold, hardened world, but one still able to shimmer with beauty when caught in the right light. Rather than allowing the camera to rove, Colangelo keeps it rigidly trained on her central performer, Maggie Gyllenhaal — barely a frame is absent Gyllenhaal’s presence — and the film is all the better for the restraint. The blues of the backdrop reflect in Gyllenhaal’s eyes and turn them a vibrant turquoise that is otherworldly. Lapid conjures a poetic vision; Colangelo captures a poetic soul.