Playground

Sister and Brother in Playground

Laura Wandel's Playground, the Belgian entry for this year's Oscars, is a drama about elementary school bullying. The almost universal praise for the film seems to me a response to its message rather than its aesthetic merit. Critics have praised the film for its harrowing realism and its sensitivity, but I found the film to be manipulative, boring, and overwrought.

The Belgian title of the film is Un Monde (A World) which gives a better sense of Wandel's intent. The world of the film is a self contained one which Wandel reinforces by keeping a tight frame around his pint sized heroine. The protagonist, Nora, is entering first grade at an elementary school her brother already attends with much trepidation. Wandel ably portrays Nora's first day jitters and her subsequent feelings of frustration and helplessness when she witnesses her brother being bullied. However, the film soon becomes overladen with intimations of racism, classism and sexism. Wandel wants to show how the sins of the parents are visited upon their children, but, by doing so, she makes her schoolchildren resemble surly adolescents. I was grateful the film was only 72 minutes long.