PLAY

27/30

A witty and ambiguous movie about integration in Europe as well as the daily game with role clichés and social images, Ruben Östlund’s Play is based on true events: Located in a rainy and indifferent Gothenburg, a group of black kids manipulate and intimidate their white peers, steal their cell phones and make them walk to the outskirts of the city. They apply an elaborate method, consisting of a blend of misdirection and intimidation, complicity and role games. In this atmosphere of violence and unpredictability, everything could happen at anytime. Östlund focusses not only on the victims but also the thugs, guiding the audience into the unruly world of the underage players, displaying Gothenburg as a functional and peaceful society hiding behind his facades.

Although the film tells the story of a small incident, it handles it with great care. Moreover, Östlund shows a great passion for little details and absurd moments, like a Native American band performing on a shopping street or an abandoned cradle becoming a major conflict in a train. The cross-cutting of those little mundane observations and the main plot form Östlund`s unique observatory and at the same time interpretative approach.

The superb cinematography involves long wide-angle sequence shots and pans which  can also be found in his earlier films like “Involuntary” and “Incident by a bank”. This surveillance-camera-style has become Östlund´s incomparable signature. Inspite of its slow pace, Play has a carefully constructed rhythm, is aesthetically innovative and through-composed, intriguing and suspenseful. It doesn’t spoon-feed his audience, but challenges and forces us to reconsider our assumptions and suspicions about race, about wrong and right..

04:09:2011