***
Mindwalk ( Prime Video )

A poet, a physicist and politician wander around together on a small island (Mont.St Michel) off the coast of France and discuss the meaning of life. That’s it! Nothing more and nothing less. We weren’t quite expecting this and it took a little while for us to orient ourselves and to try to immerse ourselves into the conversation. The movie was made 30 years ago and was directed by Bernt Amadeus Capra based on his own short story based on a book by his brother. Sam Waterson plays what seems to be a rather young US Senator who has just lost his bid to run for President, John Heard is his friend the poet and former speech writer whom he is visiting and Liv Ullman plays a physicist whom they meet on the Island. She apparently has discovered some breakthroughs in lasers and is contemplating the long-term effects on climate change, potential weapons and the survival of the planet. She carries the film with her description of atomic theory of matter, electrons and her painful awareness of the implications of her work. The politician clings to ideas of not giving up on the possibility of incremental changes. The poet quotes his predecessors and some of the wisdoms of their ancient writings. You have to come to this film prepared to ponder the secrets and meaning of the universe which we were not. Perhaps if you have the right mindset you will get more out of the film than we did. (1990)

**

The Kindergarten Teacher (In Hebrew with English Subtitles)- nf

The premise of this film is that an Israeli kindergarten teacher (Sarit Larry) discovers that Yoav (Avi Shnaidman), one of her five-year-old students has a propensity for writing poetry that is far beyond his years. She herself is somewhat of a poet and becomes very pro-occupied with the poems that emerged from her young student. We get a glimpse of her life. She is married with two grown children, one of whom is just made an officer in the Israeli army. We detect the restlessness in this teacher and an instability in her life, as she seems uncertain of her love life, sexuality and her life in general. She is also becoming obsessed with the young poet and writes down all his poems and then even tries to have him participate in a forum for poets to recite their work. The kindergarten teacher seems to be troubled and searching and the young child seems bewildered but still able to spout the thoughtful poetry.

The whole idea of the film seems so preposterous that it became difficult for us to really understand it. We even considered that perhaps something was lost in the translation. However interestingly, after the film concluded, there was a segment on the Netflix DVD in which the screenwriter and director Nadav Lapid was interviewed about the film. He shared with the audience that he as a child that age had the same ability to come forth with adult poetry about the life around him, an ability that he lost when he got older. Obviously, being a filmmaker became his way of exploring life, its complications and vicissitudes. In the end, we concluded that the film maker found a unique way of showing us his view that the world is not a safe place for sensitive souls. (2014)