Play

A goodwill idea and important film to make, and it did stir up a debate in Sweden, but still I can't help bring annoyed by the way the film. It's well played by the kids portraying both the bullies and the bullied and robbed, and you can't help getting touched by some of the scenes. This is based upon a true event, and we clearly can see the technical the bully's make. This is not the first time they've done this.

Still the problem I've got with the film is it's documentary style. It's a bit too full of art and feelings. It takes the focus off the topic too often, and makes the film boring. When we want to know what happens next, we get to see things which probably is correct in time-line, but still becomes uninteresting in the narration. The director is filming this as too much of "a fly on the wall".

This film won the Nordic Council film prize, but is by far the worst film nominated. The prize should have gone to "Kompani Orheim" or "A royal affair", which I both rated a 9. If you like a slow film about this topic, You'll probably be more satisfied. The slowness resembles the one in Gus van Sants "Elephant" which also is a better movie.

Liberal upbringing, indifference in society, uncontrolled immigration from different continents, worship of fine goods - and so there are issues depicted in the film in question, mostly characteristic to Western societies. As children and teens are among most vulnerable strata, the topics mentioned above are reflected in an intensified and crooked manner. - for them, attempts for self-determination and acts of bullying are often intertwined.

Play is focused on one incident, but similar rackets occur and have occurred for decades, thus it is not astonishing or so; moreover, it is no secret that immigrant youth is more criminogenic than local one - it is nothing to do with racism, those evildoers could have easily come from the Balkans or Eastern Europe - by way of example of Sweden where youth gangs organized by race or ethnicity have become a serious issue in big cities.

Anyway, the depiction here is protracted and arid, some scenes are lacking reason, and the ending is numb. The cast is not impressive either, I would not recognize most of them in case I see them in other movies.

Thus, a mediocre movie to me, but it would be probably educational for families with children in multi-ethnic communities.

I wonder how this film went over at investor pitch meetings. Imagine a posse of hostile Black kids shaking down much younger and smaller white and Asian-looking children for their phones? What if they do it with extreme psychological cruelty, relishing the extended emotional pain they inflict when a quick smash-and-grab would suffice?

What if all the adults shrug it off, won't help? What if there isn't a cop to be found in Gothenburg? Surely the "based on a true story" gambit will justify the nastiness of a way-too-long movie that also tortures its viewers.

So what if Afro-Swedish youngsters are villainized? Moral dilemmas over immigration fears and racism are hot topics - just check out the news. Bet on controversy to boost reviews and ticket sales while further polarizing a multiracial audience. Could it be that the film's oddball coda, laced with a dollop of extralegal citizen justice, was added to cinch its financing?

Ruben Ostlun delivers without redemption or enlightenment in an otherwise beautifully filmed movie notable for surprisingly solid, improvised performances by its non-pro cast. Not good enough. I would have passed.

But not from Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher, Funny Games) but from Ruben Östlund, Sweden. A toe-curling story that takes plausible after plausible step into the absurd. Sometimes too hard to watch. No happy endings here. Instead at the end the director chooses to open the fourth wall and suddenly turns fiction in a horrible truth and shows his true feathers as a clear racist.

Teenage boys can be horrible: watching 'Play' brought back shuddering memories from my own childhood. In 'Play', the horror is made more interesting by being set against a background of differential affluence and a racial divide; the fine line between "play" and pure bullying is also nicely explored. But it's a slow film, with no rapid cutting or background music: indeed, it's shot in a strange manner with static cameras often leaving part of the subject (or even parts of the subjects, heads for example) off screen. The result gives you the feeling of an by-stander, overhearing parts of somebody else's story; eventually, the tension builds, but it feels like a deliberately off-putting way to make a movie. At the end, I didn't know quite what to think about it: one can alternatively feel repelled by, and sympathetic to, its protagonists, but the surely intentional absence of a clear moral or emotional message means the film ends nowhere. Perhaps we're meant to leave this movie pondering matters of class and race; I left it just glad I'm not fourteen any more.