Belgian director Laura Wandel brings audiences down to the eye level of a seven-year-old girl in this simple yet profound look at how a child’s brain processes bullying. Borrowing strategies from films as diverse as “Son of Saul” and “Ponette,” this promising new voice intuitively immerses audiences in her sheltered protagonist’s early socialization. We see a girl (wide-eyed young Maya Vanderbeque) overwhelmed by the complex dynamics that await her on the schoolyard, struggling to understand how the older brother she so admires is being affected by primitive power games among his peers. This honest, unsettling movie serves as a microcosm of the adult world (apart from one sympathetic teacher, grown-ups are all but banished to the margins), forcing us to confront unflattering, long-suppressed memories of our own roles as both victim and tormentor. —PD
Playground