Beatie Bow - Das Spiel mit der Zeit

Playing Beattie Bow was probably one of the only movies I enjoyed which I had to study in primary school!

But it's a naturally brilliant movie anyway, not only dealing with a girl's attitude to growing up and surviving life, but it also has excellent screen caps of what life was like in the 19th Century Australia.

Note: I can't believe that Beattie Bow is played by "Viv" from Home And Away!!!

This is an entertaining fantasy, especially for children but with enough to interest teenagers and adults. The story is from Ruth Park's popular book and veteran director Donald Crombie re-creates old Sydney town, as Abigail has adventures in colonial Sydney while she tries to get home to the present day.

Imogen Annesley does a good job as Abigal, and Mouche Phillips is also good as the young girl from the mystical Bow family who gained special Elf powers some generations previously in the Orkney Isles.

It's an exciting romp with all the usual time-travel fascination.

I wanted to read this book by Ruth Park for a long time and finally got around to listening to it, we watched the movie after listening to the book. The book was great and we really enjoyed it, but various changes from the book mean that the movie is a silly, sappy 1980's teen romance (it kept bringing Blue Lagoon to mind for me, which I admit I did enjoy when it came out but I was a lot younger then and I have never bothered to watch it since), and the acting wasn't good enough to bring it up to being a decent movie. I felt they completely missed the point by making it an '80s movie and it definitely makes the movie seem very dated now, I borrowed the movie and I am very glad I didn't buy it because watching it once was more than enough.

Ruth Park's classic Australian book is here given a slightly insipid but enjoyable adaptation. Abigail (Imogen Annesley) is not quite as gutsy and stoic as in the novel, and a few accents are a little shaky, but visually the movie is very true to the book. The squalor of 19th Century Sydney's slum areas are vividly brought to life, using real-life locations that still exist today.

Watch the movie - but give the book a look too.

This movie is not the best Australian film of all time but It's up there for sure this film is based off of the book of the same name highly recommend watching the film and the book