Australian writer-director Mordaunt's 2007 Bomb Harvest documented the work of a bomb disposal expert in rural Laos as children risked their lives collecting abandoned ordnance for scrap metal. His feature debut is set in the same country and tells an affecting if slightly formulaic child's-eye story of triumph over adversity.
The main characters are members of a hill tribe among whom the belief that twins bring bad luck is deeply entrenched. It doesn't bode well for 10-year-old Ahlo (Disamoe), whose twin brother died at birth and who is held responsible for other cruel disasters that beset his family.
When the village is relocated to make way for a dam, the promised government housing turns out to be a patch of waste ground. Among the other refugees, Ahlo befriends an orphan girl (Kaosainam) and her uncle Purple (Phongam), an alcoholic veteran with a James Brown fixation, and resolves to turn around the family fortunes (and redeem his own reputation) by winning a competition in an annual skyrocket festival.
The story arc may be predictable but that doesn't rob it of appeal. Mordaunt, assisted by Andrew Commis' impeccable widescreen cinematography, evokes both the grubby desperation and the lush beauty of the environment while maintaining the sense of indomitable wonder that saturates Ahlo's world-view. An underwater sequence that wordlessly and gently conveys the film's political subtext is especially impressive.
On balance, it may appeal most to senior kidult audiences, but there's an effortless artlessness to the whole thing that makes it most engaging.
