Playground
Heartbreaking and powerful in its simplicity, Playground takes a simple story of school playground bullying and delivers one of the most passionately real stories all year. Aided by the intense and prestige performances of child actors Maya Vanderbeque and Günter Duret as siblings Nora and Abel, director Laura Wandel captures an authentic and tragic example of bullying . Like Nora, the audience feels like there’s no escape, trapped by the artificial rules of the playground on tattle-telling and survival of the fittest. The obstacles are familiar to anyone who had to deal with bullying: teachers not paying attention, parents not understanding, even just wanting to feel like a real man and handling it on your own (no matter how ridiculous it sounds). Wandel holds you helplessly in these children’s perspectives until you can’t breathe. Playground is a gripping film showing how a relationship can be torn apart due to forces beyond control.
