Playground
World Cinema Classics
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Drama, UR
The original title, meaning 'a world', suggests that a school is a self-enclosed universe with its own customs and abuses - and a microcosm of the injustices outside. Nora (mesmerising newcomer Maya Vanderbeque) arrives in a new school, nervous about leaving her dad and yearning for the protection of big brother Abel (Gunter Duret). In fact, it's Abel who faces bullying - and when Nora tries to help him, his ordeal only worsens. Laura Wandel's extraordinary debut is a triumph in terms of focus and concision, with the action restricted to the school premises and the camera held exactly at Nora's child's-eye height. Arguably one of the best films ever made about childhood; without doubt, one of the most gripping, and lucidly truthful.
Up Next in World Cinema Classics
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Ran
Akira Kurosawa’s visually spectacular epic transplants Shakespeare’s King Lear from Celtic Britain to feudal Japan. In its epic scope and expert execution, Ran can be seen as a culmination of the great Japanese director’s filmmaking career; a late triumph which he planned and refined over several...
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Sex Is Comedy
French cinema's arch provocateur, Catherine Breillat, investigates and attempts to understand what happens on a film shoot when scenes involving physical intimacy arise. How can something as intimate as the sexual act be captured on film? How can psychological and logical reality, along with the ...
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Baise-moi
This film is a blunt, brash and blood-smeared revenge tale of two sex workers who decide to go on a killing spree through France. Co-directed by French feminist provocateur Despentes, and based on her book, Baise-moi does not care for cinematic slickness, instead using handheld visuals and raw la...
