{"id":7565,"date":"2014-09-19T00:45:52","date_gmt":"2014-09-19T07:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=7565"},"modified":"2014-09-17T18:25:22","modified_gmt":"2014-09-18T01:25:22","slug":"small-sample-of-viff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2014\/09\/19\/small-sample-of-viff\/","title":{"rendered":"Small sample of VIFF"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nadav Lapid\u2019s The Kindergarten Teacher<\/em> raises some interesting ideas, but is lacklustre overall.\u00a0(photo from\u00a0VIFF)<\/em><\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The rollercoaster ride of emotions continued this week, as the Jewish Independent<\/em> reviewed another set of films that will be featured at the Vancouver International Film Festival, which runs Sept. 25-Oct. 10.<\/p>\n

Last week, the JI<\/em> was inspired by the documentary Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: Enter Here<\/em> (which the paper has sponsored), we enjoyed meeting the plucky street musicians on which Jalanan<\/em> focused, and we were once again horrified by the banality of evil in learning more about Heinrich Himmler in the ironically-named The Decent One<\/em>. This week, we went from mild boredom with Nadav Lapid\u2019s The Kindergarten Teacher<\/em> (Israel\/France) to engaged interest with Nancy Kates\u2019 documentary Regarding Susan Sontag<\/em> (United States) to heart-racing dread with Alexandre Arcady\u2019s 24 Days<\/em> (France).<\/p>\n

The Kindergarten Teacher<\/em> raises some potentially thought-provoking questions about the origins of creativity, ie. what allows some people to craft magnificent works (in this case, poems) and others to never achieve anything above mediocrity. It does so through the relationship of kindergarten teacher and aspiring poet Nira and one of her students, five-year-old Yoav, who we\u2019re supposed to believe is a poetic genius.<\/p>\n

Understanding that this is a work of fiction, the bounds of believability are strained nonetheless on more than one occasion: for example, Yoav\u2019s father fires Yoav\u2019s nanny without pausing upon hearing Nira\u2019s unsubstantiated accusations; and Yoav\u2019s poems, while good for a child are hardly earth-shattering. What\u2019s more frustrating is what passes for internal conflict \u2013 Nira staring, staring, staring \u2013 or genius at work \u2013 Yoav pacing, pacing, pacing. Ultimately, there\u2019s nothing grossly wrong with the storytelling or filmmaking here, the movie just needed a better editing job and more focus. At an hour-and-a-half, The Kindergarten Teacher<\/em> might have been stimulating; at almost two hours, it\u2019s sleep-inducing.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Nancy Kates\u2019 Regarding Susan Sontag<\/em> is an entertaining personality profile. (photo from VIFF)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kates does a far better job at rousing curiosity, raising questions about the nature of art, culture, sexuality, happiness and other such topics. For those who already know a lot about Susan Sontag, Kates\u2019 documentary likely won\u2019t be that illuminating about her as a person or writer\/critic\/filmmaker, as the biographical and professional moments highlighted seem pretty basic. But, for those who know little of Sontag, this is a great introduction, which captures not only Sontag\u2019s strengths but also her vulnerabilities. For both types of viewers, the excitement of intellectual, philosophical and personal discovery (and re-discovery) that Sontag felt and expressed is catching.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
A scene from 24 Days<\/em>: Ilan Halimi\u2019s girlfriend and parents speak with the lead investigator on the case. (photo from VIFF)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We know how 24 Days<\/em> will end. It\u2019s based on the true, tragic, terrifying story of the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Ilan Halimi. Yet, Arcady manages to make us hope \u2013 throughout the entire film \u2013 that, somehow, Halimi will survive.<\/p>\n

Overwhelming at times, between his family\u2019s grief, the police\u2019s desperation and his captors\u2019 anger, 24 Days <\/em>apparently sticks quite closely to the events as they happened in Paris in early 2006, as recorded by Halimi\u2019s mother, Ruth, in the book 24 jours, la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 sur la mort d\u2019Ilan Halimi<\/em>, which she co-wrote with Emilie Fr\u00e8che.<\/p>\n

Targeted for kidnapping because he was Jewish \u2013 the logic being all Jews have money and, therefore, could afford to pay a large ransom \u2013 Halimi was tortured, starved and, literally, left for dead when the negotiations for the ransom failed. His family was traumatized by ever-changing demands, graphic photos of their beaten son, expletive-filled threatening phone calls (more than 600 in 20 days) and false hope. The police are portrayed as genuinely trying to find and free Halimi, but as sadly ineffective \u2013 and completely insensitive to the antisemitic motivations of the criminals.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Other films with Jewish content or creative talent include Zero Motivation<\/em> (Israel), a black comedy by Israeli writer\/director Talya Lavie about everyday life for a unit of young, female Israeli soldiers; and Welcome to Me<\/em> (United States), a \u201cdramedy\u201d directed by Shira Piven, about a lottery winner (played by Kristen Wiig) who has borderline personality disorder and makes some questionable decisions about what to do with her windfall. For the full festival lineup, visit viff.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nadav Lapid\u2019s The Kindergarten Teacher raises some interesting ideas, but is lacklustre overall.\u00a0(photo from\u00a0VIFF)\u00a0 The rollercoaster ride of emotions continued this week, as the Jewish Independent reviewed another set of films that will be featured at the Vancouver International Film Festival, which runs Sept. 25-Oct. 10. Last week, the JI was inspired by the documentary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[787],"tags":[1918,1921,1920,1919,1917,1900,1916],"class_list":["post-7565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-film","tag-alexandre-arcady","tag-ilan-halimi","tag-nadav-lapid","tag-nancy-kates","tag-susan-sontag","tag-vancouver-international-film-festival","tag-viff"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}