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Foreplays is a column that explores under-known short films by renowned directors. Jane Campion's A Girl's Own Story (1984) is free to watch below. In consecutive close-ups, the inscrutable faces of three girls appear briefly on screen, as we hear the tune from a music box. Cut to the page of a book with the illustration of a male body, headless but with an erect penis. The girls’ hands gather around the male figure. One finger starts gliding across the drawing, carefully following the anatomical lines. The camera moves, trailing the finger that ends up underlining a sentence at the bottom of the page: “This sight might shock young girls.” The music ceases, hysterical female screams take over. Superimposed onto the black background, in an overwrought, baroque typography, the film’s title appears. This is the start of A Girl’s Own Story (1984), the fourth short directed by Jane Campion...

I've been clocking this for a while now as it's premiering at the London Film Fest, but unfortunately our London correspondent won't be able to attend the premier due to a conflicting schedule so we'll have to settle for what's publicly available, and right now that's a full synopsis and 3 clips! For those familiar with Green Street Hooligans and how good that was, this is a more British version sans any American actors.

"On the Wirral in the grim early years of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, the opportunities for thrill-seeking young men looking to escape 9 to 5 drudgery are what they’ve always been: sex, drugs, rock n’ roll, fashion, football and fighting. Paul Carty (Nicky Bell) goes to the game, chases skirt, pores over records in the racks at Probe, and gets to see Echo and the Bunnymen, but his fraught family life and dull job leave him feeling bereft.