Savages: a tragi-comedy set in a 'quirky handcrafted world'

The Swiss filmmaker Claude Barras's debut feature film – the stop-motion animation "My Life as a Courgette" (2016) – was nominated for an Oscar. Now he is back with a follow-up, and it is just as distinctive as its predecessor.

Once again, he has populated a "quirky handcrafted world" with expressive, clay-sculpted figures reminiscent of childhood drawings, said Dan Jolin on Time Out. But whereas the first movie was a tragi-comedy that played out in a children's care home in Switzerland, this one takes place on the island of Borneo, where schoolgirl Kéria (Babette De Coster) has moved with her widowed father (Benoît Poelvoorde), so that he can take up a job with a palm oil company.

Kéria's father is Swiss, but her late mother was a member of a local indigenous community, the Penan, said Graeme Virtue in the Big Issue. Kéria seems "disconnected" from this part of her heritage; but she bonds with a young orangutan that has been orphaned by the loggers. Then, one of her cousins is sent to stay with them to get him away from the protests against the palm oil giant's deforestation efforts. When he flees back to his home in the rainforest, taking the ape with him, she pursues him – and so learns about Penan culture, and the threats to their way of life.

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Barras has described his work as "Ken Loach for kids", and his film is undeniably political, but it has a hopeful message, and there is plenty of monkey business for kids to enjoy, too. It could have done with "a bit more action and adventure, to balance the anti-corporate messaging", said Tom Shone in The Sunday Times. Still, it makes for a nice change from Hollywood's saccharine animations, with all their knowing pop culture references, and the handmade jungle is brought "to teeming, tactile life".