Three Early Campion Films at LACE

There’s no denying that Australian filmmaker Jane Campion has made a splash with “Sweetie,” whose heroine is an overweight, intransigent female slob. She has since completed “An Angel at My Table,” the stunning, as-yet unreleased biography of tormented New Zealand writer Janet Frame. Meanwhile, you’ll be able to see tonight at 8 at L.A. Contemporary Exhibitions, courtesy of Filmforum, three short films Campion made as a student at the Australian Film and TV School, and were subsequently shown at the Cannes and New York film festivals.

They are a delight and show that from the start Campion paid a great deal of attention to the everyday world around her, seeking to discover what makes seemingly ordinary people tick. At the same time, we see her discovering within herself--and with extraordinarily acute cinematographer Sally Bongers--fresh ways of expressing other people’s emotions and concerns and her own bemused feelings about them. That she deals with commonplace situations and individuals only underlines her distinctive style and sensibility, which is suffused with equal parts humor and compassion.

The 9-minute “Peel” (1982) is a hilarious take on a child’s disobedience. Freckled, redheaded Ben throws orange peels from the car, and his father Tim (also freckled and redheaded) stops the car and orders him to pick them up. Ben’s aunt Katie joins in, reminding both that they are in danger of being late. Campion’s set-up and payoff would have been appreciated by Buster Keaton.

The somewhat more conventional 27-minute “A Girl’s Own Story” (1984) is a recollection, shot in black and white, of growing up in a girls school in the ‘60s, enamored of the Beatles (and less than thrilled by one’s own appearance), curious about sex and boys and dealing with parents who have refused to speak to each other.

The 13-minute “Passionless” (1984) is the gem of the trio, a lovely experiment in dipping into the imaginations of other people at those moments when their random thoughts are free-associating; don’t be surprised if you experience an amused sense of recognition.

Also screening is Viki Dun’s 27-minute “Can’t You Take a Joke?” (1989), in which a young woman who has lost her boyfriend to another man seeks out a cartoonist to help her find her lost sense of humor. The cartoonist is a lesbian; you can take it from here. Dun’s film is amusing in its own right but frankly suffers in comparison with Campion’s more idiosyncratic work. (213) 663-9568.

“A Chinese Ghost Story 2” and “Swordsman,” both of which played at the Garfield in Alhambra and the Sing Lee in Chinatown last year, open as a delightful double feature for a one-week run at the Nuart on Friday. In the first, a Hong Kong period adventure, director Leslie Cheung and his principal writer, Leung Yu-Ming, present elementary comic book material with considerable artistic and political sophistication. A classic struggle between good and evil, it has martial-arts razzle-dazzle, broad humor, flashy camera trickery, rock ‘n’ roll, much magic, a Godzilla vs. the Exorcist motif and locales with quaint names like the Orchid Monastery and the Righteous Villa. Leung Yu-Ming stars as a naive young tax collector who falls in love with a beautiful ghost (Wang Tsu-Hsin).

The second, a martial-arts epic directed primarily by King Hu, is a whirlwind of a movie that has everything you could ask of an action/adventure: fly-through-the-air-with-the-greatest-of-ease combat and swordplay, bravura camera work and music to match the breathtaking acrobatics, fabulous period sets and costumes, lightning-speed pacing and nonstop special effects wizardry. More important, it has a blithe spirit, a sense of humor, style to burn and a genuine aura of enchanting screen magic. Never mind that it has an impenetrable plot, set in motion by the discovery that the “Sunflower Scripture,” which contains martial-arts secrets unlocking supernatural powers, has been stolen. Sam Hui and Cecilia Yip star.

Note: The Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. Critics’ Choice Series continues Tuesday at 8 p.m. in UCLA’s Melnitz Theater with Billy Wilder’s “The Fortune Cookie” starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.