Giuseppina

Oscar winning short in which a young girl observes the array of quirky characters who pass her father's rural petrol station.

This is quite a quirky documentary, produced by BP, that follows a morning in the life of the eponymous girl who is a bit bored, so watches the customers come and go through her dad's petrol station because he won't take her to the nearby fair! He tries to convince her of just how much fun she can have staying put - but she's unconvinced and for the first five minutes, so was I! The the oil tanker delivers - but he only stays for a few moments to top up his coffee... More birdsong the a hunter on his bike, a couple of Vespa-riding clergymen. Finally, a swanky big saloon car. Dad can't find the petrol cap but at east she gets her photo taken (about two thousand times!) and he gets a big cigar. Then some unlucky newlyweds arrive, all suited, booted, oily and sweaty, but with a puncture on their tiny little car - dad gets to fix that and she gets to replace the bride's long gone corsage. Fun day, eh? Wait, there's even more excitement as one of those Morris Travellers - remember with the wooden framed rears, well it's got engine trouble so the (British) owners must stop and have some civilised afternoon tea whilst they wait for a new spark plug to be fitted. They don't even ask her to join them though, miserable gits... Eventually a sleek Mercedes convertible arrives and it's guitar playing passenger gives her a chance for a quick dance before lunch. The snag with this is that except for the few seconds of liveliness in her day, this is as dull to watch as it is to live through and the pace really doesn't have much gas either. Quite what or who BP made this for is anyone's guess, but it does have a charm to it as we watch the quiet life of a rural community where roads were still shared by donkeys and dreycarts, bikes and classic looking sardine tins with wheels and 500cc engines.