Concrete Playground

The world begins behind your neighbour’s walls... Tatia Rosenthal’s film is a coarse series of vignettes about a group of characters who are linked predominantly by their apartment block. The characters include a lonely old man; a beggar turned angel; a model with a hairless sexual fetish and her obsessive quick-to-please lover; a juvenile man who chooses his tiny mates over his fiancée; an unemployed guy; a depressed man and a naïve child who thinks his piggy bank is alive.

The narrative is jerky (perhaps the result of being adapted from short stories by Etgar Keret) but this is an intriguing pastiche of the ordinary, unusual and surreal. The excellent stop-motion animation is enhanced with an all-star cast of Australian talent lending their voices (including Anthony LaPaglia, Geoffrey Rush, Claudia Karvan, Samuel Johnson, Joel Edgerton, Barry Otto and Ben Mendelsohn lending their voices) but $9.99’s biggest drawback is that the social observations made lack much insight or depth.


We have 10 double passes to give away thanks to ICON films! Email your details to hello@concreteplayground.com.au for your change to win.