You can plan all you want, but there’s an alchemy and the visual language evolves – it’s beautiful when you don’t know how a film is going to end up.” A lot of it comes from Maggie’s intensity. “Then it amps up in the second half as things get more tense. “We have a lot of slow zooms in the beginning that are hopeful in a subconscious way,” Colangelo notes. The tonal shift is, of course, deliberate. It’s simultaneously an act of child abuse and a tragic cry for help on Lisa’s part. Then Lisa drags the kid to poetry readings, all against the parents’ wishes. At Lisa’s poetry classes, run by Simon ( Gael Garcia Bernal), everyone suddenly takes notice of this woman’s new voice – Simon even makes a romantic move on her. Lisa’s aforementioned line-crossing occurs when she starts to pass off Jimmy’s musings as her own work. “Maggie did an interview with Trevor Noah, and he was like, ‘What is this? A psychological thriller? A horror movie? A drama about a child genius?’ It doesn’t tick one box.” She recalls watching Gyllenhaal attempting to sell the movie on American chat shows. And, of course, the American setting – Trump’s America, where he’s defunding the NEA – was such ripe territory for me to look at, and the space – or lack of – that we give poetry.” In preparation, Colangelo revisited uncomfortable arthouse fare like Roman Polanski’s Repulsion and Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher. But I wanted to take the character and give her a little more agency. “It had an allegorical, almost Greek tragedy element I loved. “I love the original film,” Colangelo explains. Interestingly, she adapted the script from a 2014 Israeli movie by Nadav Lapid. It marks Colangelo’s second feature and earned her the Best Director prize at Sundance. Is that OK?”Ĭolangelo is speaking to us on the morning of The Kindergarten Teacher’s sold-out screening at the London Film Festival. “How do we create that Zen moment where we can sit and meditate on something? I felt a kinship with Lisa’s feeling that we don’t meditate about the words we use so much anymore. “With our gadgets, we’re bombarded constantly by data and information,” Colangelo sighs. At all times, Colangelo and Gyllenhaal toy with the viewer’s emotions, eking out an argument that poetry can be a positive force for society – even as Lisa, its biggest supporter, steps into criminal, morally dubious territory. It starts out as a bittersweet drama and evolves into a jaw-dropping thriller. The Kindergarten Teacher, then, is a provocative piece of work – the kind we desperately need in our cinema landscape. Then, one day, Lisa recognises a creative spark in her 5-year-old pupil Jimmy, and the line between cheerleading mentor and kidnapper becomes murkier and murkier. By day, Lisa commands classrooms like a pro by evening, she’s a frustrated writer whose contributions are dismissed by her poetry tutor. Is there still space for poetry in the modern world? American filmmaker Sara Colangelo believes so.In Colangelo’s new movie, The Kindergarten Teacher, Maggie Gyllenhaal delivers a career-best performance as Lisa, a full-time educator and wannabe artist. Is there still space for poetry in the modern world? American filmmaker Sara Colangelo believes so An interview with The Kindergarten Teacher director Sara Colangelo
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