Duncan Campbell

A boy's feet hitting the pavement commence the dreams of mobility that hurtle out of control in Duncan Campbell's prescient, if uneven, new film. Nominally, the focus is the dizzying rise and fall of American car designer John DeLorean, who in 1981, with heavy investment from the waning Labour government, opened a factory in Belfast. A year later, thousands were left jobless when DeLorean Motors spectacularly upped sticks amid accusations of embezzlement.

Through an impressionistic splicing of archive footage, what Campbell in fact achieves is less a portrait of DeLorean than a panoramic view of the social iniquities the free market runs on. Pioneer mythology, car lust, surfing and the 1973 US oil crisis form the vivid backdrop against which DeLorean's story unfolds. Dingy news footage of workers at the Belfast factory points to a cavernous social gap.

The story chimes loudly with present day issues, yet Campbell maintains a sense of historical distance. Revving engines frequently drown out those interviewed, old film stock evokes times past, while the footage available, almost singularly focused on powerful 'main players', leaves many holes. As if to plug this absence, a sort of afterword gives a fictional platform to history's voiceless, with actors playing laid off workers. From the irony of the American dream being built in Belfast to an old man opining, 'my work made me feel less alone', the film's subtle implications are here literalised through rickety truisms. It makes an awkward addition to Campbell's lithe, expansive approach to the mercurial past.