Posted at 11:30 a.m.
Coming from the country of the Dardenne brothers, this first feature film by Laura Wandel impresses in more ways than one. The Belgian filmmaker offers a total immersion in the playground of a primary school by always maintaining, without ever letting go, the point of view of a little girl discovering the cruelty of which her older brother is the victim.
The camera never rises above the children’s gaze. The adults gravitating around them being seen only from their perspective, the faces of the latter are thus only revealed to the viewer when they bend over. Obviously well documented (the filmmaker observed playgrounds for a few months before writing her screenplay), Laura Wandel interferes in a kind of microcosm where human relations in society take root in a raw way.
In doing so, she offers a constantly tense story, where the lowest instincts of human nature and the way to confront them are sometimes juxtaposed. Despite her very young age, Nora (formidable Maya Vanderbeque) understands well the dilemma in which she is plunged, between a father (Karim Leklou) who tries to find out what is going on, her desire not to be intimidated for the simple fact of to be “the sister of”, and the silence demanded by her brother Abel (Günter Duret, also excellent).
Without effects, by taking the bias of realism, this feature film evokes the infernal cycle of violence which, in the light of the events that the world is experiencing at the moment, never seems to want to end.
Awarded the international press prize in the Un certain regard section of the Cannes Film Festival last year, A world is now playing on the big screen in Quebec.
Drama
A world
Laura Wander
With Maya Vanderbeque, Gunter Duret, Karim Leklou
1:13 a.m.