A camera glides, barely noticed, across a French playground. Young boys and girls, aged 4 to 6, shout and run and play with abandon. As the camera settles in on their actions, we see an unassailable truth: Kids are vicious. There is pushing and hair grabbing, kicking and punching, theft for theft’s sake and tempestuous storms that disappear as quickly as they appear. But amidst the everyday cruelty, there are also moments of wild creative joy, teamwork, and true altruism. Simon, the silent master of pointed observation, knows exactly where to point her camera and for how long. This masterclass reminds us how small a documentary subject can be and how the great filmmakers can take a scene that we might overlook and, through careful observation, capture something transcendent.(DW)