‘Playground’ (also known as ‘Un monde’ in its original language) is a 2021 belgian film that approaches the horrors of school violance. In my opinion, a lot of comercial movies use bullying in a disrespectful way, using it as something trivial or as a character characteristic (usually to justify their identity). But they rarely explore the emotional impact and the darkness that school violence causes in real víctims. I watched Playground a few years ago and I though it was the most honest psychological portrait of bullying I remember in cinema. It really is such a humble film, developed in a single location without increasing its runtime above an hour. The movie’s main and unique ambition is to follow a young girl throughout her first days of high school, the same high school where her dear older brother secretly suffers all kinds of violence from his classmates. As spectators, we’re bound to watch the horrors that hide beneath the surface of a mundane secondary school, the same way many of us grew up watching them, though the only perspective of a young girl who discovers that her brother is being denigrated. It’s a raw and uncomfortable portrait that avoides giving moral lessons, because it just pushes us to be testimonies of things that happen in the world and we’ d like to avoid. But it is real. Thoughout its minutes, the film explores the damaging consequences of bullying, focusing on the loss of inocence, hope and identity that lies within. I feel that the film wants to record this typical and particular bullying case as if it was the saddest thing it’s happening in the world, because in fact for them it is the saddest thing it’s happening in the world. What on earth can be more devastating than seeing your brother changing and embracing darkness because of the bullying he receives? Or than learning that there’s irrational and unstoppable evil in the world? These kind of discoveries traumatize this little girl as well as should traumatize every viewer to never look away and make us question everything we know it still happen every day on playgrounds.
Adrià Borràs
I really appreciate your take on Playground. I agree with you with the fact that so many films treat bullying as a shallow plot device or as something that conveniently explains why a character behaves a certain way, without truly showing the emotional destruction it leaves behind. What stood out most to me in your reflection is how the film does not just focus on the victim, but also on the people around them. Sometimes we forget how harmfull bullying can be. Bullying does not just affect the direct victim, it affects everyone around them. Changing relationships, family dynamics, and a child’s entire worldview.
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