Playtime (Brasil, 2025)
Original title: Hora do Recreio
Director: Lúcia Murat
Screenplay: Lúcia Murat
Running time: 83 minutes
Most of the work of director and screenwriter Lúcia Murat is usually associated with her experiences with the Brazilian military dictatorship, during which she was an anti-dictatorship guerrilla fighter and was even arrested by the regime. However, with her new film, Murat turns her attention to today’s youth in Rio de Janeiro, recording conversations between students from slum communities and their teachers about issues that are important to them, such as drugs, racism, teenage pregnancy and sexism.
What could have been a very simple film becomes more complex and interesting due to the director’s experience. Already accustomed to the Brazilian audiovisual universe, she managed to combine the film she intended to record with the filming process itself, which brings more layers to the difficulties faced and the importance of this feature film.
We could divide the film into three layers, which in fact alternate quite organically within the film. One of them would be this conversation organized by teachers and which gives the students freedom to discuss the topics covered among themselves, with only the guidance of the adult present. The second layer is the recording of a play inspired by Clara dos Anjos, by Lima Barreto, with an update of the themes and a discussion about the permanence of subjects that are over a century old. In third, there’s an exposition of the film device itself, as it shows the difficulties they faced in recording it, which ranges from the type of authorization required for each type of school to a police operation carried out in the meantime, showing the community’s reaction to the situation. All of this is edited with several famous national rap and funk songs, which talk about the same reality and function as a hook for editing one element to the next.
With the presentation of these layers, a Brazil is shown that’s very difficult to access not only for foreigners, but also for people from other cities or social classes, such is the inequality in the country. Although one might wonder about the exposure of these stories and these young people to an audience, everything is treated clearly, with everyone knowing that these elements will be recorded. Thus, the film serves as a way of overcoming the barrier that exists between the audience and those portrayed in the film.
Although all these good intentions are quite clear in the film, it’s important to point out that its editing makes its beginning much more impactful than the end, which focuses more on the performance of Clara dos Anjos. By opening the film with important lines that keep the audience interested, one expects a narrative curve that can maintain interest until the end. Unfortunately, this isn’t what happens with the film, which loses some of its strength after its second third, creating a feeling that it doesn’t reach the potential that one imagines at the beginning.
We have, then, an audiovisual work that mixes fiction and reality and that presents a very modern language to speak to young people. However, with its repetition of subjects, it ends up losing part of its initial impact.
