Play - Just a game?

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Movie
German title Play - Just a game?
Original title Play
Country of production Sweden
original language Swedish
Publishing year 2011
length 118 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Ruben Östlund
script Ruben Östlund
Erik Hemmendorff
production Erik Hemmendorff
camera Marius Dybwad Brandrud
cut Jacob Secher Schulsinger
occupation

Play - Just a game? (Original title: Play ) is a Swedish drama directed by Ruben Östlund from 2011 . It is about a gang of young people who use subtle means in Gothenburg to pressure and rob other young people. The film is based on a true story from the 2000s.

action

Alex, Kevin and Sebastian, all three children from the Swedish middle class , are on a shopping spree through a Gothenburg shopping center. You are observed by some Somali youth and finally spoken to. Under a pretext, they have Alex show them their mobile phone and claim that one of their brothers had exactly such a model stolen over the weekend. Some scratches and damage also lead to the assumption that it could be the stolen goods.

The African youth ask the children to prove the origin of the phone. Since they cannot do this and Alex cannot reach his mother by phone, the young people suggest that the three children meet with their brother so that he can also examine the phone. He was near the shopping center, so the suspicion could be dispelled.

The children are afraid to come along and initially refuse. They can escape the young people for a short time, but are pursued by them through the city. You ask some adults for help, but they are evasive and do not want to get involved in an argument. The youngsters move with the children further and further into the outskirts of the city. With subtle threats and hints they manage to put constant pressure on the children and thus force them to go along. When one of the youths leaves the group, he is kicked and beaten by the leader.

On a lonely dirt road, the youngsters finally propose to hold a race. All valuables should belong to the winner. But in the race, one of the youngsters uses a trick and doesn't run along the path, but takes a shortcut across a meadow. The youngsters win the race and take all valuables such as wallets, telephones, branded trousers and a clarinet . The children are now allowed to go after the lost "race" and take the train home. They are picked up by two inspectors and receive parking tickets for stealth promotion .

In one of the last shots, two of the children are walking around town with their fathers. They recognize one of the perpetrators, whereupon a father confronts him and demands that a cell phone be handed over. A woman observes what is happening, but interprets the situation in her own way and asks the father to leave the boy alone. She accuses the father, who used violence himself when addressing the boy, of racism .

criticism

The editorial team of filmstarts.de is wondering whether the storyline already consists of racism. She herself does not see racism in the film, but rather a “dissection of psychological mechanisms” with young actors who convey a complexity “which can grow into realistic contradictions from a possibly schematic experiment.” The taz criticizes the film for the fact that Östlund “ himself repeatedly bogged down in the racist contradictions of political correctness .

The lexicon of international films said: “This central storyline of the film opens up a highly differentiated, ambiguous view of the events based on a real case of juvenile delinquency. He partially destroys this positive impression with his clumsy ending as well as some much weaker subplots, which reduce the event rather flatly to ethnic tensions. "

Frank Schnelle from epd Film only awarded 2 out of 5 stars and judged: “Everything is politically correct, but annoying in its monotony and redundancy. In case of doubt, a two-hour tram ride, which on top of that costs only a fraction of a cinema ticket, promises the same insights, but more visual variety. "

The film was the subject of intense discussion, particularly among the Swedish public. The trigger was a report by Jonas Hassen Khemiri in Dagens Nyheter with the title "47 reasons why Ruben Östlund's film 'Play' made me cry". Among other things, Khemiri stated that the film seemed racist to him and that it irritated him that people laughed out loud in the cinema. Die Dagens Nyheter regretted that Östlund “did not give the viewer the opportunity to see the story from the perspective of the 'other'”. Another critic of the same newspaper contradicted this. Åsa Linderborg from Aftonbladet complained that Östlund did not take responsibility for his provocations.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Play - Only one game? Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2013 (PDF; test number: 136 575 K).
  2. ^ Review of Play , website of filmstarts.de, accessed on November 21, 2014.
  3. ↑ When the Con-Man arrives , taz website, accessed on November 21, 2014.
  4. ↑ Play - Just a game? In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  5. ^ Review of Play , website of epd-film.de, accessed on April 16, 2015.
  6. ^ Jan Füchtjohann: Play: Gloomy game . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 31, 2013, accessed on November 25, 2014.
  7. ↑ “Play” - A film turns prejudices around , Voxeurop website, accessed on November 22, 2014.