Wheel of life turns for bicycle thief
A 12-year-old girl conspires to live alone in her London council house after her mother dies of cancer in tender comedy-drama Scrapper.
Scrapper (PG)
In cinemas
★★★½
Scrapper is a British film in the fine tradition of Ken Loach — it’s a film about working class battlers. The title character is Georgie (Lola Campbell), a 12-year-old kid who has contrived to continue to live alone in a suburban London council house after the death of her mother from cancer. She survives, with the help of her slightly older best friend, Ali (Alin Uzun), by stealing bicycles.
Georgie has taught herself to pick the bikes’ padlocks and either sells parts for scrap or repaints the machines to sell them. Nobody seems very aware of her illegal activities and she’s perfectly happy looking after herself, telling convincing lies to school and welfare authorities in order to maintain her independence.
All goes well until the sudden reappearance of Jason (Harris Dickinson), the father who walked out on Georgie and her mother years earlier to try his luck in Spain. Jason re-enters his daughter’s life by climbing over the garden fence and refuses to leave. Parental discipline is something the fiercely self-reliant and cranky child is unused to and she is determined to resist it, so a battle of wills ensues.
Scrapper is the first feature from writer-director Charlotte Regan, and much of it is accomplished, notably the terrific performance of young Campbell.
Unfortunately, Regan dabbles in the kind of whimsy that doesn’t play well in this kind of setting; the film has what appears to be a couple of Greek choruses, one consisting of some little girls dressed in pink, the other of three little black boys in yellow shirts.
This sort of thing undercuts the drama the rest of the film explores so well, though there are no prizes for guessing how the storyline will develop.
Dickinson is an admirable foil for his diminutive co-star, but the film belongs to Campbell whose comic timing is admirable.
Creation of the Gods Part 1: Kingdom of Storms
(Feng shendi yi bu: Zhao ge feng yun) (MA15+)
★★★½
Recent Hollywood epics, like The Flash, have proved to be disappointing, so the arrival in a limited number of Australian cinemas of the first part of a Chinese trilogy of films titled Creation of the Gods should be particularly welcome for lovers of high concept action, massive spectacle and accomplished visual effects.
For Chinese audiences the source of this super-epic will be familiar: it’s based on Fengshen yanyi (Investiture of the gods), one of the country’s most celebrated fantasy novels. Written by Xu Zhonglin and first published in the 16th century, this is a story that reaches back thousands of years and involves not only human characters but also monsters and immortals. Sounds a bit like the Marvel Cinematic Universe narrative, doesn’t it?
Director Wuershan and his team have obviously spared no expense in bringing the first part of this epic story to the screen. The film commences with a battle in the snow between rival human armies, a magnificently staged set-piece as good as anything from Hollywood’s golden age of spectacle — think El Cid (1961) or Spartacus (1960).
Once the plot kicks in we’re introduced to Jiang Ziya (Huang Bo) who goes on a quest to find an emperor who will be a good ruler and not like Yin Shou (Fei Xiang), the evil Emperor of Shang, who is a tyrant and murderer. Jiang Ziya forms an alliance with Ji Fa (Yosh Yu), the son of Ji Chang (Li Xuejian), the Overlord of the West and the only survivor of the four overlords who were deposed and killed by Yin Shou.
The adventures of the two young men are complicated by subplots involving other quests as well as supernatural appearances, such as the fox with nine tails that possesses the body of Su Daji (Narana Erdyneeva), Yin Shou’s concubine.
The film, which has been a huge success in China, where it opened two months ago, is certainly impressive on its chosen level.
If it has a flaw it’s that the narrative is — for the non-Chinese viewer at any rate — sometimes confusing, but it all comes together by the time it reaches its spectacular finale.
The combination of expertly staged action scenes, including some superb equestrian stunts, and the impressive visual effects proves to be most satisfying.
The acting is robust, the photography (by Wang Yu) is first class and the film should prove to be a rewarding entertainment for audiences who enjoy this kind of super-production — if they can adjust to the fact the dialogue is in Mandarin. The subtitles are fine.
Climate Changers (G)
In cinemas
★★★
The principal character in Johan Gabrielsson’s one-hour documentary Climate Changers is environmental activist Tim Flannery, but, unlike the recent documentary portrait of Bob Brown, this is not a biography of the man. Instead, the film follows Flannery from his home near the Hawkesbury River in NSW as he interviews a handful of fellow “climate changers”, among them Al Gore and Malcolm Turnbull.
Flannery, passionate and dedicated, mostly exchanges views on the challenges facing the world via Skype. Among the climate changers he chats with are Jayapura-based human rights lawyer Frederika Koran and chief scientist for Rewiring Australia Saul Griffith who bemoans the lack of visionary leadership in this country, citing Churchill and Roosevelt as visionary leaders of the past.
At the COP 21 meeting in Glasgow Flannery meets Gore, who admits to being a fan of the Australian activist’s work. Back in NSW, Malcolm Turnbull asserts that climate policy in Australia has been weaponised by right-wing politicians, vested interests and the publishers of this newspaper. Soon after this proposition, which is not a new one, Sky commentator Andrew Bolt is seen on his show where he describes Flannery as “the perfect symbol of the death of reason”, which seems to me like a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
This is, it will be clear, a film for audiences who are on Flannery’s wavelength. As a documentary it is unremarkable but the material is thought-provoking and challenging and those who see Flannery as a hero will be well satisfied.
