It is in a hostile jungle that plunges A world by Laura Wendel. Seen from the height of children, the playground of a primary school would convey the universe of the series Squid Game for a nursery. The children’s games have nothing tender, especially for little Nora who is making her first comeback and who discovers that her big brother is being harassed.
“I was not inspired by a personal experience but by the place, confides to 20 minutes the young Belgian director, whose film was presented at Cannes in the Un Certain regard section. In front of a school, I said to myself that everyone has been there and that adults forget what they have experienced. The booster shot is beneficial. The little girl is soon torn between the desire to confide in her mistress (Laura Verlinden) and their father played by Karim Leklou or to remain silent as her brother demands.
Through the eyes of children
“I was interested in the point of view of children to confront the spectator with what was his own discovery of social space, an essential learning that shaped him for the rest of his life”, insists Laura Wendel. She also points out the difficulty of parents and teachers to manage this type of situation. “A violent child is also a child in pain,” she believes. To be able to move forward, you sometimes have to dare to say that you feel powerless. What the father and a competent and dedicated teacher feel as they struggle to find a solution.
If rough or roughed up in the film, the young actors (including the dazzlingly talented 7-year-old star Maya Vanderbeque) were carefully taken care of during filming. “They obviously rehearsed a lot to appropriate the dialogues that I wanted to be as natural as possible, but they also drew each scene before shooting it, which was a good way to dissociate reality from fiction. The camera goes to their level to reveal the tortures (beatings, head in the toilet or the trash can, verbal humiliations) that take place as soon as the guards relax their attention.
A world talks about school bullying, of course, but also about loyalty and the responsibilities that must be assumed at a tender age. “The film will undoubtedly affect parents more, but it is not exclusively intended for them,” says Laura Wandel. It is indeed not necessary to be a mother or a father to receive this great film with full force.