52 Films by Women Vol 6. 20. PLAYGROUND (Un Monde) (Director: Laura Wandel)
Few films have
captured the trauma of starting school as well as Un Monde (Playground), written
and sensitively directed by Laura Wandel. The action is shown entirely from the
point of view of young Nora (Maya Vanderbeque) as she becomes a catalyst for
her older brother’s bullying. Their behaviour feeds a growing discomfort in the
Belgian school’s shared spaces where much of the action takes place. Wandel
builds to a horrifying climax, taking her sibling protagonists to the
precipice.
We first meet seven-year-old
Nora clinging to her older brother, Abel (Günther Duret) in the school playground It is embarrassing for him. ‘You
can spend time with me later,’ he tells her consolingly. Nora then hugs her
father (Karim Leklou) who has crouched down to speak to her. Father wants to
walk her into class, but he is told (off camera) that it is not permitted. The
school takes responsibility for moulding children from the moment they enter
the grounds. Protocol is strictly adhered to. Behaviour is then learnt. When
invited to do so, you must give your name. Nora wavers. You must sit at your
assigned table at lunch, and you should not mix with your sibling. Nora
resists.
Nora’s desire to
walk over to her brother, first in the refectory and then in the playground, soon
draws attention to him. Abel shows surprising restraint in not castigating his
sister in front of older boys. But Nora is fairly fearless when she sees her
brother being beaten up, even though she is the cause - Abel’s bully friends
don’t want to have the attention of being seen with a girl. She tries to pull
the bully away from Abel, even though he towers over her.
Abel accounts for
his injuries in terms of football games. ‘I scored a goal,’ he tells his father
when explaining the bruising around his eye. His father approves. ‘We lost a
game,’ he says, explaining two sets of bruises. ‘Failure teaches you to win,’ his
father responds. Nora and Abel don’t appear to have a mother in their lives;
father doesn’t work, raising the children by himself. One of the children
refers to men who don’t work when they can as ‘scroungers.’ While Abel is
increasingly humiliated, Nora’s ability to make friends, which begins with her being
taught how to tie her shoelaces, flourishes.
On one occasion when
Abel is bullied, Nora runs to fetch a playground assistant, who is busy with
another girl who is in tears. By the time the playground assistant attends to
Nora, the bullies have left Abel alone. On another occasion, Nora watches
helplessly as her brother is carried by two bullies and dumped in a large
refuse bin. She wants to rescue him, but a teacher calls her inside and sends
her to her class. Later that afternoon, Nora is called from class, school staff
having discovered Abel in the bin. There is a parent-student conference in
which the bully apologises with a shake of the hand. It is inferred that the
bully’s father thinks his son is being treated poorly.
Abel meanwhile is
ostracised. He sits on his sister’s table and is ridiculed by Nora’s classmates,
who cruelly tease him for not showering’. ‘Doesn’t your sister show you how?’
one asks.
Nora meanwhile is
desperate to attend the birthday party of a classmate, Victoire. She is
involved in a balancing game – the film’s central metaphor for childhood, a
balancing act. The first time, Nora does not complete the walk. That means she
doesn’t go to the party. She asks to try again and after an initial rebuff she
walks on the balancing pole with help. In these scenes, we don’t see how far
Nora is above the ground, the camera is fixed on her.
When the invitations
are given out in the playground and Nora is not given one, she snatches the
pile from Victoire and tears them in half. A kindly teacher helps her repair
them. Victoire’s mother will allow Nora and Abel to attend the party, but the
damage is done. The embarrassment experienced by both Nora, Abel and Victoire
is palpable.
Nora sees Abel make a
new friend of North African origin and pulls him away from the boy. The
siblings are close to fighting, but Abel again shows restraint. Nora blames her
lowered status on Abel. He is an embarrassment to her. Abel, of course, sees it
differently and calls her out.
Their father visits
the school one lunchtime. In the aftermath of the attack on Abel, he wants to
make sure his son is okay. He asks Nora to stand on a bin and talk to him. Nora
tells him that he shouldn’t be there. We feel her awkwardness. We also see the
awkwardness and Abel and Nora pose for a school photograph, Abel putting an arm
round his sister. Neither can be coaxed to smile.
In the finale, Nora
sees Abel and another boy putting a transparent plastic bag over the head of Abel’s
‘new friend’. The image is shocking. Nora pulls at Abel to drag him away from
the boy. Our anxiety, that Abel’s victim might die from suffocation, mounts.
Off camera, we sense that the boy has got free. Nora wonders (we imagine) what
her older brother has become.
As the above
synopsis suggests, Un Monde is not a pleasant watch. There is barely any
relief from children’s mistreatment of one another – the occasional lesson
breaks up the playground scenes. Nora undoubtedly grows at school, evidenced in
a scene where she shows her father how she ties her laces. Significantly, for
the most part, she learns from peers and not from teachers.
Therein lies the
problem. Peer influence is more pervasive and damaging than any intervention by
a teacher. Children go to school to be with their friends. Learning is just an
interruption to the periods of ‘play’. In the playground, children assert
themselves in binary ways, making rules and leading others. Their classmates
admire this quality, yet it leads to rejection and hurt. There is also the
inevitable sad moment when one’s favourite teacher leaves – Nora experiences
this. She also questions why her father does not work, even though he says that
his job is to take care of her and Abel.
In limiting the
action to school premises, Wandel doesn’t show Nora and Abel discussing their
school day at home. I imagine that they would have done so. There is also the
question of the extent to which early years behaviour shapes the development of
one’s personality. Who will turn Abel into a good role model for his sister? In
the final scene, Nora’s actions appear to suggest that she is rescuing the boy
Abel is attacking. But she is really trying to save her brother. In the absence
of a mother, Nora shows maternal instinct, albeit unnaturally.
Wandel’s film is an
entirely visceral experience, as challenging in its way as Nora Fingscheidt’s Systemsprenger (System
Crasher). You watch Un Monde wanting there to be more classroom monitors as well as more ways of
treating bullying. Handshakes do not work.
Reviewed at Leeds
International Film Festival, Sunday 14 November 2021, Vue The Light, Leeds,
Screen Nine, 14:15 screening
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