An Exercise in Discipline: Peel

A brother and sister, and his young son are driving back home. The son starts throwing out orange peels. There is heated exchanges and the son leaves the car. Honestly, I expected a car to run over the kid. There is good tension with the arguing and the cars speeding by. In the end, I don't understand what happened and I don't think I care. This won the Short Film Palme d'Or in 1986.

A close, concentrated look at a dysfunctional - or regular - family in a car. It's amazing how fully the characters are fleshed out in nine minutes, without giving any information except what we witness first hand.

A man, his sister, and his son are driving along the road, anxious to get home so the woman can see her soap opera. She is, anyway. The son is peeling an orange and tossing the peel out the window. The man tells him to put the peel in a bag, so it can be disposed of at home. The son refuses.

This early Jane Campion short -- it won a Palme D'Or at Cannes for short subjects -- is about several things: the legendary anger of redheads, the fact that Australians talk like Australians, and littering. It makes its point not with the orange peels, which are, after all, biodegradable, but with the other roadside litter, all of which is ugly, but some of which is gross.

This was New Zealand writer/director Jane Campion's first film, showing all the imaginative talent that would later garnish her an Oscar for the magnificent "The Piano" in 1993. Much is revealed in a short nine minute time span about an impatient man with a short fuse, a disenchanted, petulant woman, and a brat of a child. It is obvious that the man and boy are father and son (they even look alike). The woman seems out of place. She is listed in the credits as the man's sister, ergo the boy's aunt, yet she seems emotionally distant from the two.

"Peel" is an appropriate title, applying literally to the peeling of the orange that starts the commotion that leads to confrontation, and figuratively signifying the peeling away of the outer skins of the trio to lay bare the inner turmoil and conflict. The first phrase of the title, "An Exercise in Discipline," is used in a sardonic sense. There is little discipline involved in the battle among the three where emotions run amok and a ripple effect occurs from child to adults. What begins as a tussle between father and son for domination and control ends as a stalemate with father and son teaming up against the sister/aunt. To further emphasize the ignorance and stupidity exhibited, the entire show takes place along a busy public highway in broad daylight.

On a higher plane, Jane Campion indicates that major battles which may destroy individuals, families, and nations often begin over the silliest of occurrences, in this case the peeling of an orange and throwing the husk out a car window. The narrow minded among us can become so stubborn concerning minor infractions of rules and regulations that we forget how mundane and harmless such actions really are. The man decides this after much ado when the boy picks up all the pieces save one that have been strewn along the roadway. He surrenders to the boy's wishes and wistfully places the boy atop his shoulders to return to the parked car only to begin a new war with his sister, who is late for her destination as a result of the orange peels fiasco.

Color adds to the effectiveness of the allegory with the bright shades emphasizing the frayed emotions, lost tempers, and broken dreams. "Peel" is a much underrated short by a gifted artist.