With her forceful feature debut Playground, Laura Wandel takes an intimate, intense look at the intricacies of abuse at school from a child’s point of view. Following 7-year-old Nora and her big brother Abel, Belgium’s Oscar short-listed drama is a microcosm of the cycles of bullying and violence playing out across the world.
“Wandel pulls no punches in her depiction, and both Leklou and Vanderbeque deliver performances well beyond their years. (A child’s ability to embark on roles this psychologically draining will never cease to amaze.),” Jared Mobarak said in his review. “With only 70 minutes at its disposal, Playground pushes forward with powerful intent. Not a second can be wasted. Not a single glance can be unmoored from the bigger picture. That sacrifice above is thus the catalyst for Abel’s rapid descent into abuse from those who know him and those who don’t.”
With the film now playing at Film Forum and expanding, we spoke with Wandel about making her debut feature, the cycles of bullying, the inspirations behind the film, the preparation process, the original title, and more.
The Film Stage: When did you know that this was going to be your debut feature?
Laura Wandel: So I wanted to explore the world of the school and the playground and a child who discovers this world. And I felt that I couldn’t really address all these questions within a short film, so it had to be a feature.
When it comes to the cinematography by Frédéric Noirhomme, how did you technically pull that off in terms of camera placement?
So the camera was actually strapped to his waist, so he was actually strapped on its shoulder and it was at the height of his waist to be as high as Maya [Vanderbeque]. So there was an assistant who was walking close by with the batteries so that it wasn’t too heavy on his back. And I was walking next to him with a small screen so that I could see what was happening on the screen and direct the children.
Can you talk more about the blocking when it comes to the children? I assume there were a lot of rehearsals to pull off such a precise vision. What were the joys and challenges of that process and just in general working with the cast of children?
So It was actually a really long process. I worked for three months with the children before we started principal photography and I knew I wanted from the onset that the children would never read the whole script so that they could bring their own creativity to the film. And then I enlisted the help of an orthopedagogist. That’s actually the same word in English. It’s somebody who helps children learn in the right way. It’s a kind of learning coach, and she had developed this method for another film with a four-year-old. And this is like a four-step method.
The first step was that the children would create a little puppet of their character. I would ask them to talk through the character so that they would make a distinction between themselves and their character. So that’s the first step.
The second step is that we would explain to them the beginning of a scene, and we would ask them to imagine what would happen next and we would just steer them in the right direction. But, you know, with them coming up with their own suggestions.
And so the next step is that I would ask them to start improvising and so they would involve their own bodies, and sometimes they would come up with dialogue that was more interesting than what I had written. So I would go back to my script and rewrite with the children’s input.
And the last step is that we would ask them to draw the scene that we had rehearsed. And so at the end of all their rehearsals, they would have a small booklet. There was actually a storyboard that was drawn by themselves that they could go back to once we started principal photography. And so this scene is actually the scene in the toilet. And so they couldn’t go back to these little storyboards and go back to the feelings that they were in when they rehearsed the scene.
Wandel showing storyboards the cast created.
I’m curious about the inspirations of the films. People have already brought up the Dardennes and Son of Saul in terms of the camerawork and intensity. One of my favorite movies about bullying is Let the Right One In, which is more of a genre film but it gets the heart of the pain and suffering. Were you inspired by any other films?
I don’t know Let the Right One In. Who directed that?
Tomas Alfredson. It’s a vampire movie, but it has a lot to do with bullying.
[Wandle notes down.] Ruben Östlund, the director of The Square, did another film called Play that was one of the sources of inspiration. Jacques Doillon’s Ponette is another film about childrens’ gaze as well. There’s a French documentary called Récréations by Claire Simon, which is about a playground in kindergarten and it’s a really interesting documentary.
The film is a perfect length at around 70 minutes, in terms of packing in so much intensity. Did you always know it would be in this compact mode or did you trim things down in the editing room?
The script was always very short. It was 90 minutes, not more. But then in the editing room, we felt it was just the right time and that didn’t need anything else. So it just ended up that way.
I saw the French title of the film is Un monde, which I believe translates to A World. The English title of Playground is more obvious, but I’m wondering if you can talk about the meaning behind the original title?
Yes, I really like the French title because it’s much more open. Of course, it can be the world of school. It can be the world in childhood. It can be the world of Nora. But it’s also a mirror of society in general.
The film focuses mostly on the children, but I could also see it as a metaphor for the way adults can treat each other. What do you think adults could learn from this story?
I would like adults to actually go back to what it felt like for them to be a child themselves and to go to the level of the gaze of the children, to really understand them and to understand what it feels to be a child.
This film takes place in a very narrow point of time, but I’m curious about the cycles of abuse and bullying and how they evolve over time. Where do you think these children will be in five years? How can we address the cycles of bullying?
Well, I think that as long as a child has not been listened to, that an adult has not listened to a child and has not recognized this wound, this violence is a kind of reaction to a wound, and the only solution is really to take the time to listen. I believe that there are no spectacular changes all at one time. Abel and Nora already have learned to take better care of each other, to understand each other better. And so in some ways, their relationship has evolved.
In terms of looking at the parents and the teachers, it’s a very non-judgmental view. The parents are trying to help. The dad comes to the school during the day to try to see what’s going on. The teachers have a lot to deal with themselves. How important was it for you to take more of a non-judgmental view of the adults in the situation?
Yes, because I did an extensive body of research and I was a witness of those situations where adults at the end of their wits don’t know what to do, and it’s such a complicated issue that has so many roots. I could not really judge adults because they tried to do their best.
Playground is now playing at NYC’s Film Forum and will expand.