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Plot synopsis
Mention the Amish and most people picture drab-garbed farmers with funny
haircuts, plain-faced women with a prim white covering tied over their
hair, a quaint, peaceful, old-fashioned folk who still plod around in
horse-and-buggy while the rest of the modern world zooms on by in their
shiny new cars. Devil's Playground is a look at the rather
extraordinary world of Amish teens who, when they turn sixteen, are
given their first and only opportunity to get out from the community and
experience the modern world — in all its glory and excess, vice and
sin. It's a rite-of-passage called Rumspringa, and the idea is that
these teenagers need to see what else the world has to offer before they
can make an informed decision about whether to return to the Amish
community and join the church as adults. The film follows a group of
several boys and girls as they explore booze, drugs, sex, rock-n-roll,
video games, television, the whims of teen fashion, and other aspects of
the "English" (non-Amish) world, wrestling with both the usual
teen dilemmas of crushes and young love, and the decidedly unusual
dilemma of whether to give up all the freedom, fun, and convenience of
modern America in order to become a full-fledged member of the church
and community they've been brought up to believe in .
Review
"Amish kids got the best parties," claims one
"English" teen in Devil's Playground. This here is the
Amish like you've never likely never seen them before: boogying-down,
chain-smoking it up, getting trashed, partying harder than even your
average rebellious American teen. Devil's Playground is one of
those documentaries whose subject matter is so damn intriguing, it's
almost irrelevant that the film itself isn't shot in the most compelling
manner. So let's get the negative stuff out of the way first: Devil's
Playground isn't the best-paced documentary, nor is it particularly
artistically-notable. It's a pretty straightforward PBS-style,
talking-heads sort of flick, with just a hair of MTV-inspired
sensationalism tossed in at the beginning, which means that it sometimes
gets a little sluggish, occasionally feels a little manipulative. And
then there's the problem that the stories of the various featured teens
aren't equally interesting: in particular, the story of Faron soon
begins to take over, as the ordinary problems of regular Amish teens
just can't compare to the trials and tribulations of a drug dealing,
crystal-meth-addicted, trainwreck of an Amish teen, who also happens to
hope to follow his father's footsteps into a life as a preacher. But
when you think about the fact that the Amish are usually so reluctant to
be photographed by the outside world, Devil's Playground begins
to seem like a pretty extraordinary film despite its flaws: this
thought-provoking, eye-opening documentary gives you a rare, rare
glimpse into an incredibly rich, complex, world that you probably never
even knew existed. —reviewed
by Yee-Fan Sun
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