The doctor comes to the remote clinic and tosses the chanting African children the gift of a soccer ball.

Then he sets to work. Anton (Mikael Persbrandt)  is a surgeon, a member of Doctors Without Borders bringing medicine and healing to this remote, dusty part of the world. All around him he sees evidence of the brutality of the Men with Guns. He is patching up those he can, victims of the violence of a thuggish gang leader named Big Man, a bully protected by his fellow bullies.

But there’s also bullying back in Denmark. Elias (Markus Rygaard) is mercilessly picked on in school. Dad’s always away, in Africa saving lives. Mom and dad are split up. Who can he turn to? Maybe the new kid, Christian (William Jøhnk Nielsen)?
Christian’s being picked on too, for being a Swede amongst all the Danes. But pick on Christian and that little boy will mess you up.

“In a Better World,” we’d all get along. Childhood bullies wouldn’t grow up into adult thugs. The cycle of violence that often begins with parents and passes generation to generation would be broken and there would be no need for Doctors Without Borders. That’s the thesis quietly laid out in this Susanne Bier film, based on a script by Anders Thomas Jensen. The problems of the playground are writ large when they’re repeated in lawless, well-armed Africa. And they grow larger still when the mind wanders off to think of even larger conflicts between nations.

What’s fascinating here is the way Anton’s pacifism, which he tries to pass on to his son, is juxtaposed with Christian’s savvy about the way the world — especially the playground — really works. Has this kid seen “The Untouchables”? Because he takes Sean Connery’s meet fists with a knife credo seriously. Anton’s non-violence is tested both there — he tries to confront the father of a bully — and in Africa, where he has to do something to save his patients from the monster who keeps putting them into Anton’s hospital.

The classic argument about meeting force with force is tested, even as Anton starts to question his own words to his son –  “That doesn’t help anything.”

The acting, as in all of Bier’s films (She did “Things We Lost in the Fire” in Hollywood), is subtle, affecting and first rate.  The kids are chilling, and Persbrandt lets us see the wheels turning in Anton’s head as he tries to reason with the unreasonable, from his own child to adults who win arguments with their fist or gun.

That makes “In a Better World” a most deserving Oscar winner and a film that could provoke discussion anywhere it is shown, anywhere people of any age are being bullied.

MPAA rating: R for violent and disturbing content some involving preteens, and for language.

Cast: Mikael Persbrandt (Anton), William Jøhnk Nielsen (Christian), Odiege Matthew (Big Man) and Markus Rygaard (Elias).

Credits: Directed by Susanne Bier, written by Anders Thomas Jensen, . A Sony Pictures Classics release. Running time: 1:59.